Paris [France], August 1 : Ranked number one Tennis star, Iga Swiatek's hopes for a gold medal at the Paris Olympics in the women's singles event were washed away by China's Qinwen Zheng on Thursday.
With a 6-2, 7-5 win in straight sets, Qinwen Zheng became the first tennis player from China to make it into the final of the event at the Olympics. Before her, Li Na held the record for best standing for China in the event following a fourth-place finish at the 2008 Beijing Games.
The four-time French Champion Swiatek arrived at the Philippe Chatrier Court to play under sweltering conditions.
With a 25-match win streak in Paris, Swiatek stood as the favourite among the two on paper. In their previous six meetings, the 23-year-old defeated China's Qinwen in each encounter.
In the first set, Swiatek looked off her pace and struggled to catch Qinwen Zheng off guard on the clay court, which has been her strong suit.
Zheng quickly overwhelmed Swiatek in the opening set following her 6-2 win. In the second set, Swiatek roared back into the game, raising hopes of taking the match into the decider.
Despite being down by 0-4, Zheng made a remarkable comeback to level the second set at 4-4. Riding high on the momentum, Zheng sealed Swiatek's trip for a bronze medal match.
Zheng's opponent in the final is yet to be decided. She will face Croatia's Donna Vekic or Slovakia's Anna Karolina Schmiedlova in the gold medal match.
This wasn't the only upset pulled off in the ongoing Paris Olympics. On Wednesday, the US pair Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram ended Spanish stars Carlos Alcaraz and Rafael Nadal's hopes of a gold medal in the men's doubles event at the Olympics at Philippe Chatrier Court.
In the quarter-finals, Alcaraz and Nadal were outplayed by the US pair in straight sets following a 6-2, 6-4 defeat.
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