Poland’s tennis star Iga Swiatek was delighted after getting the much-awaited ‘revenge’ over China’s Zheng Qinwen at the Indian Wells. The 23-year-old, who is regarded as one of the best players currently playing in women’s tennis in the singles category along with the likes of Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka and America’s Coco Gauff, booked her place in the last-four of the ongoing WTA 1000 event in California after defeating Qinwen in the quarterfinal in straight sets with a score of 6-3, 6-3.
The win was an important one for Swiatek as in the last meeting between the two, which took place in the semifinal of the Paris Olympics in the women’s singles category, it was the Chinese tennis star who came out on top in straight sets with a score of 6-2, 7-5. Swiatek later admitted that defeat broke her heart as she went on to cry for about ‘six hours’.
The reigning world number has spoken to the media after the match where she admitted that she was glad to win against an opponent against whom she lost an important match. The Warsaw-born stated that the clash at the Paris Olympics, which was played at the clay court, did not help her and added that the win was an important one as she wanted to show the world that she ‘can do it’, something she already knew before the Olympic clash as well.
“For sure it does,” she said. “I want to show myself and everybody that I can do it, and I already knew before the Olympics match, I know now. But yeah, it's not nice to lose to anybody, so for sure you want to have a little, I don't know, like revenge, but it's nothing personal. I think every player has that against everybody who they lose [to] before. Besides the fact that this was the only match that I lost against Qinwen and I wanted to learn from it, it didn't really cross my mind that much. Because I knew that this is on hard court and I knew what I did wrong on the Olympics. Honestly, I would say that clay didn't help me on the Olympics, because these high spinny balls that came into place, it's much easier to go forward and to play them when you know exactly how the ball is going to bounce. On clay, you can't really do that. For sure, it was tricky then. Here I thought it's gonna be more clear, and that's what happened.”