Women’s tennis world number one Iga Swiatek (Poland) overcame some of the disappointment of missing out on gold to win the bronze medal in the Olympic tournament at the Paris Games.
The Polish tennis player suffered her first defeat in 26 matches on the Roland Garros courts on Thursday to Qinwen Zheng (China) and broke down in tears during a television interview afterwards.
But she will go home with honors after defeating Anna Karolina Schmiedlova (Slovakia) by 2-0 (6:2, 6:1) in the dispute for the third place.
“I think if I hadn’t played today, I would have cried all week. I cried for about six hours yesterday, it was really hard”, said Iga Swiatek, whose father is a former Olympic rower. “It’s sports, it’s tennis… usually I’m clear that it’s just one part of my life, but this time it’s like someone really broke my heart. It’s crazy. Maybe it’s because I’ve been No. 1 in the world for so long time and won so many tournaments, I felt that I could handle everything. But this Olympics showed me that it is not so”, added she.
