Iga Swiatek used the last couple of days to sit back and analyze every detail from her Paris Olympics run as the world No. 1 pretty much said that she experienced from the best to the worst during this year’s Summer Games.
Going into this year’s Paris Olympics, four-time French Open champion Swiatek was considered the absolute favorite for the gold medal and anything besides that would have been a big surprise. And that big surprise happened after Swiatek delivered a pretty shaky and tight performance in a shock 2-6 5-7 semifinal loss to Zheng Qinwen.
Moments after the match was over, Swiatek refused to shake the chair umpire’s hand over a call on Zheng’s match point and later was seen crying during a TV interview. However, the 23-year-old Pole still earned her maiden Olympic medal in Paris after dismantling Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 6-2 6-1 in the bronze medal match the day after her loss to Zheng.
After getting bronze, Swiatek revealed that she “cried for six hours” after the Zheng match and that she felt humbled.
“After a couple of days I feel ready to sum up this chapter… Joy, happiness, sadness, disappointment, satisfaction, hunger for more, pride and so many other emotions, thoughts… I’m still figuring it out and I feel how valuable this…
