Polish tennis player Iga Swiontek has retired from a WTA tournament for the second time in her career. In a third-round match at the WTA 1000 tournament in Madrid, she was unable to complete the third set.
Swiontek began her Madrid tournament with a match against Ukrainian tennis player Daria Snigur, whom the Pole defeated in straight sets. The world number four's next opponent was American Ann Lee, whom she had not met before.
What happened in the match between Swiontek and Lee?
- The fate of the first set was decided in a tiebreak, where it was the American tennis player who celebrated the victory.
- But already in the second set, Swiontek managed to restore parity in the match, winning the game with a score of 6:2. The second set lasted 40 minutes.
- In the third set, Li stormed ahead by winning three games in a row, breaking once, before the Polish player called a medical timeout.
- After providing assistance, Swiontek decided to end the third round match early due to gastrointestinal problems. The Pole left the Madrid stadium in tears.
For 24-year-old Swiontek, this is the second time in her professional career at WTA tournaments that she has withdrawn from a match. In May 2023, the Pole was unable to finish the match of the WTA 1000 tournament in Rome against Kazakhstan's Elena Rybakina – then she withdrew due to injury.
“I've been feeling terrible for the last two days,” Swiontek said of her withdrawal from the tournament. “I felt fine for a few hours, but at other times I was really, really bad. I heard that there was something in the locker room, some virus circulating somewhere nearby. I know that in a few days everything will be fine, but I felt completely without energy, without any stability.”
“I thought I would get better, and maybe I did, but not enough to play for that long. I knew it would be difficult, but I still wanted to try because I had been sick a few times in my career and had been able to win most of my matches. It all depended on how bad I felt, and this time it was much worse than before.”
“I felt like I had a chance, but in the third set I even started to feel dizzy, my vision was blurry, like I lost my coordination. I couldn't even drink. Usually I always feel full of energy on the court, but it suddenly disappeared. By the beginning of the third set, I felt like I had a chance, but what happened happened. I don't remember the last time I had to withdraw from a match. Rome? Yes, but then it was an injury. I always want to fight until the end, but if I feel like I can't do it, like in Rome, there's no point in continuing.”
The next tournament for Swiontek will be another “thousandth” tournament, which will be held in Rome. The start of the WTA 1000 tournament in Italy is scheduled for May 5. Regarding her return to the court at the competition in Rome, the tennis player says that she has enough time to recover.
“We have enough time, the most important thing now is to recover. It will take me a few days to get rid of this virus, but I hope to be back to normal and ready in three or four days. Then I will be able to return to training,” Swiontek is quoted as saying by the Great Tennis of Ukraine.