World No.1 Iga Swiatek has walked off centre court in tears after her 25-match winning streak at Roland Garros came to an end in the Olympic semi-finals.
The four-time French Open champion was the clear favourite to win gold but Zheng Qinwen will now play off in the final following the Chinese star’s 6-2 7-5 win.
Swiatek refused to take questions from international reporters after the match, only saying: “Sorry, next time.”
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She told Eurosport Poland about having “a hole” in her backhand, and blamed stress and a lack of time between matches for her performance.
“It happens rarely because (the backhand) is usually my most solid stroke,” Swiatek said.
“I was not technically well positioned because of the stress and the fact that I played my games day by day. We didn’t have time to adjust that and work on that.
“I know that’s not the justification but I tried to correct that during the match. Today it didn’t work at all. So she used that to win the game.”
Swiatek held a 6-0 career record against Zheng, but the 23-year-old claycourt specialist produced one of her worst displays of the season, making 36 unforced errors against her opponent’s 15.
Zheng becomes the first Chinese player to reach an Olympic tennis final.
In the men’s draw, Carlos Alcaraz guaranteed himself a shot at a medal with a 6-3 7-6 (9-7) victory over American Tommy Paul to reach the singles semi-finals.
The 21-year-old picked himself up after the disappointment of Wednesday night’s doubles loss with Rafael Nadal, recovering from 2-5 down in the second set.
Alcaraz has, however, withdrawn from next week’s Canadian Masters citing fatigue.
“It has been a very long season for me and due to the accumulation of matches and fatigue, I will not be able to play in Montreal this year,” said Alcaraz in a Tennis Canada statement.
Earlier this week Novak Djokovic, who is also still in contention at the Olympics, also withdrew from the Canadian Masters, which serves as a tune-up event to the US Open.
There is guaranteed to be a new champion, with Tokyo gold medallist Alexander Zverev losing 7-5 7-5 to Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti.
Musetti, who reached his first grand slam semi-final at Wimbledon, has maintained his good form on the clay and becomes the first Italian to reach the last four in Olympic singles in the modern era.
– with AAP