The patriot feelings of Iga Swiatek have always been strong and the Polish player always spoke fondly about representing Poland in tennis. Her young career has already experienced a fair share of success and now she will become the 2nd family member to represent Poland at the Olympics.
Her father Tomasz participated in the 1988 Olympics as a member of the quadruple sculls team finishing 7th overall. She loved hearing stories about it as a child:
“One of his experiences was when he was standing in line to get food and he was standing next to Steffi Graf and [Gabriela] Sabatini. So that was pretty cool.”
Now 33 years later she will represent both her country and her family at the Olympics. Many pundits believe Swiatek to be one of the main favourites as her hard-court game improved significantly over the past year. On just playing she said:
“It’s going to be nice playing with Poland on my T-shirt,” Swiatek said, “but if I could win a medal, it would probably be the highlight of my career.”