Iga Świątek finished tournament Olympic medal in Paris with a bronze medal after defeating Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 6:2, 6:1. This is a historic success – the first medal for a tennis player and the first Olympic medal for a Polish player tennis. On the other hand, Świątek said directly that this was her most important start of the season and she was aiming for gold.
Journalist Justyna Kostyra commented on the semi-final on Eurosport and on the Max platform Igi Swiatek with Qinwen Zheng, in which Shelf turned out to be worse (2:6, 5:7).
In an interview on the “Program Tenisowy” channel, Kostyra was asked how she sees our tennis player's result in the capital of France. The media and fans are divided on whether the bronze should be considered only as a great achievement or also as a certain disappointment.
How to look at Świątek’s result?
– I see it as a great success. If we look at the previous games and see where the favourites were eliminated, it is clear that the tournament puts additional pressure on the tennis players. Olympic champions such as Monica Puig (from Rio 2016 – ed.) or Belinda Bencic (from Tokyo 2021 – ed.) were not predicted to win gold. I treat Iga Świątek's medal as a success that may also pay off in the future. Just like in the case of Novak Djokovic, who waited a very long time for gold – said Justyna Kostyra.
The 37-year-old Djokovic won the Olympic gold medal in Paris for the first time in his career. Previously, he had only one medal in his collection – bronze from Beijing 2008. – This is an invaluable experience for Iga. I hope she will also be able to see this as a success, because we know how ambitious she is. She herself is certainly not happy with the result, when the games were held in her “kingdom”, on the courts of Roland Garros – the journalist points out.
There have been recent comments from some experts who claim that our tennis player has no other plan in case of failure during a match. – I looked and thought: Iga, where is your plan B, a shortcut, a change of tactics? She played the same. She played terribly, and Yulia Putintseva played fantastically – said BBC commentator David Law in an interview with “Przegląd Sportowy” after the Pole's match with the Kazakh at Wimbledon. – There is nothing that Iga can do when plan A fails. Because she doesn't have a plan B. Maybe she never will. That's her tennis. She wins 80, 90 percent of matches with what she does best. And maybe she will never do anything else – said Tomasz Wolfke, commentator for Eurosport, for the Weszło portal in the context of the Olympics.
Is Iga Świątek looking for plan B or C?
Justyna Kostyra, when asked about other solutions for Iga Świątek, admitted: – I am not part of the team and it is hard to say whether Świątek has a plan B or C. We can only base it on what we see. Sometimes a change of rhythm would probably be useful. In the semi-final, the backhand did not work, as Iga herself said, and the forehand was not ideal either. Maybe then you really do need to pick up the ball or go to the net. Iga was under the net several times, it worked out fantastically for her and maybe we need to use such a scenario more often.
However, according to the journalist, it would be difficult to implement any plan in such a match due to the emotions that accompanied our ranking leader. – It seems to me that when Iga was so tense, plans B or C flew out of her head. We often heard tennis players say that before the match they had agreed on something with the coach, but then they went out on the court and were left there alone. Iga has to make decisions on her own. When we experienced this tournament, let's think about what Iga must have felt – concluded Justyna Kostyra.
Iga Świątek will soon take part in her first tournament after the Olympics. She will play in a tournament of the rank WTA 1000 in Cincinnati. On Saturday evening she met her opponents – in the first round she will have a bye, in the second she will face Ajla Tomljanović or a qualifier. The competition starts on Tuesday.