After a breathtaking start to the season, the 21-year-old Polish will seek to find "Cincin" a second wind, she who seems to have scored the blow in recent weeks (she was eliminated last week in the round of 16 in Toronto by the Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia) as the US Open looms (August 29 - September 11).
"It's hard for me to make eye contact with Serena, there are always so many people around her," Swiatek explained, adding that she never had the courage to actually speak with the American with 23 Grand Slam titles, who continues to count down at 40 the countdown that leads him to the end of his career.
"I'm quite shy, so in his presence, I'm like a child in kindergarten," she confessed again.
The two-time French Open champion, who has amassed 37 wins and six titles this season, has played just four times in Cincinnati - securing her only win as a first-round qualifier in 2019.
This year, she will face for her entry into the running either the French Alizé Cornet, who ended her long invincibility at Wimbledon, or the American Sloane Stephens, who has an invitation.
Iga Swiatek and Serena Williams have never crossed paths on court, and the odds are growing dim as the American has announced she will be ending her prolific career in the near future.
Although she hasn't set a timetable, just saying "the countdown is on", the US Open seems like the right place to say goodbye.
Cincinnati would therefore be his penultimate tournament.
In Ohio, the two women are not in the same half of the table, and could only find themselves in the final, a very unlikely outcome while the American, who only resumed competition in singles at Wimbledon (defeat in the first round against the French Harmony Tan), will face in the first round the Briton Emma Raducanu, victorious last year at the US Open.
There would then remain a final possibility, the next US Open.
"It would be the last chance to play against her," Swiatek said.
"I would love to, if only to see how it is to face him on the other side of the net."
© 2022 AFP