No. 1 Iga Swiatek loses to China’s Zheng Qinwen in semifinals at Paris Olympics
PARIS — Iga Swiatek lost to Zheng Qinwen of China 6-2, 7-5 in the Paris Olympic Games semi-finals on Thursday, a surprising setback for the No. 1 ranked woman and champion of the Roland Garros four out of the last five years.
The outcome was hard to predict for several reasons. Swiatek entered the day with a 6-0 advantage in their head-to-head meetings. She has led the WTA rankings for nearly every week since April 2022, while Zheng is No. 7. Additionally, just when Swiatek seemed to be coming back into the match with a 4-0 lead in the second set, she faltered.
Most impressively, Swiatek is at her best on clay and at this particular venue. The 23-year-old Pole dominated Roland Garros, the stadium used for the annual French Open and the site of the tennis competitions during these Summer Games.
The 21-year-old Zhengrunner-up to Aryna Sabalenka at the Australian Open in January, secured China’s first Olympic tennis singles medal since the sport returned to the Games in 1988.
In Saturday’s gold medal match, Zheng will face either No. 13 seed Donna Vekic of Croatia or unseeded Anna Karolina Schmiedlova of Slovakia, who were scheduled to meet Thursday night on Court Philippe Chatrier.
Vekic eliminated number 2 Coco Gauffthe 20-year-old American, reigning US Open champion, in the third round.
Thursday’s men’s quarterfinal clashes pitted Novak Djokovic of Serbia against Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, and Tokyo Olympic champion Alexander Zverev of Germany against Lorenzo Musetti of Italy in the top half of the draw; Carlos Alcaraz of Spain against Tommy Paul of the United States, and Casper Ruud of Norway against Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada in the bottom half.
Swiatek’s dominance over Zheng included a victory in the same stadium in the fourth round of Roland-Garros 2022. Zheng also won the first set of this one, the only set dropped by Swiatek at this event.
Things didn’t go so well this week.
In Wednesday’s quarterfinal, Swiatek played three sets and lost her breath when she was hit by a ball from the racket of her opponent Danielle Collins, who had to retire from the match with a stomach injury. Collins, an American, then gave Swiatek a lesson on being ‘insincere’ when they spoke in court.
Surprisingly, it was Zheng who opened the scoring, capitalizing on three unforced errors from Swiatek, including a game-ending double fault, to take a 2-1 lead. The lead, such as it was, lasted only five minutes, as Swiatek, buoyed by applause and shouts of “Iga! Iga!”, immediately broke back to make it 2-2.
But then Zheng, with her big serve and big groundstrokes in action, began to take full advantage of Swiatek’s many misses and won four games in a row.
After that set, Swiatek draped a white towel over her shoulders, grabbed her equipment bag and headed to the locker room to take a break, which is allowed in tennis. Maybe the break allowed her to refocus. Maybe it made Zheng lose focus. Either way, the match immediately changed.
When play resumed, it was Swiatek who was back to her best, hitting powerful and confident forehands, dictating the points. A double fault from Zheng gave Swiatek a 4-0 lead in the second set. However, Zheng did not concede anything and suddenly the score was 4-4.
When it was over, thanks to a shot from Zheng that was placed just wide of a line but which Swiatek thought had landed, the winner fell on her back, covering it with clay.
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