I confirm what I wrote in the prediction published a few days ago for Tennis World USA about Paris Olympics: this is a tournament for outsiders. You can see it from the final that Qinwen Zheng will play tomorrow against Donna Vekic. Let’s be clear, they are both great tennis players: the Chinese reached the final at the Australian Open, the Croatian has just played the semifinal at Wimbledon. So the two tennis players in the best form reach the final, but, in hindsight, Iga Swiatek’s defeat in the semifinal against Qinwen is something epochal, considering that it was played on her beloved Roland Garros clay-courts.
The bronze medal won against Anna Karolina Schmiedlova is always a great achievement, but considering the playing surface and the dominance expressed by Iga in the entire clay-swing, her defeat was truly unexpected. The issue she had at the end of the quarterfinals against Danielle Collins (in a women’s singles tournament full of dramatic moments) could have affected the psyche of the young WTA No.1, who bounced her dominant tennis on clay-courts against the wall erected by Zheng.
Swiatek d. Schmiedlova 6-2 6-1
Iga wins the Bronze at the Olympics
She should be immensely proud of what she’s done for her country, not only this week, but in the bigger…
