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Iga Swiatek has been the monster of Roland Garros over the past five years. The Olympics turned out to be a different challenge.
Playing on the same surface where she has won four French Open titles since 2020, Swiatek was stunned by China’s Zheng Qinwen 6-2, 7-5 in the semifinals of the women’s singles draw, bouncing out the heavy favorite to take gold.
Swiatek will now face the loser of the other semifinal match between Slovakia’s Anna Schmiedlova and Croatia’s Donna Vekic in the bronze medal match.
Zheng was hardly an out-of-nowhere competitor as the No. 7 player in the WTA rankings, but the 21-year-old was a heavy underdog with a 0-6 record against Swiatek. She was also facing a player who had won the French Open at the same stadium only two months ago, with a 32-2 total record in Paris. And she had to survive match point in her previous match against American Anna Navarro to reach the quarterfinals.
It should have been relatively simple for Swiatek, who was competing for her gold on easily her best surface. She ended up making it difficult.
Swiatek broke Zheng on her first chance in the first set, but then started to make a number of uncharacteristic mistakes. Zheng won six straight games to take the set, with Swiatek visibly frustrated as she made 16 unforced errors.
The Pole regrouped from there, winning the first four games of the second set to restore order. And then the mistakes came back. Zheng broke her three times in a row, again, and took advantage of another 20 unforced errors in the second set. As Swiatek’s return landed long on match point, Zheng collapsed to the court like she had just won a tournament.
She at least made history. Zheng is now the first Chinese tennis player to ever reach the Olympics final, and she is already guaranteed to be the first medalist in the country’s history.
