Iga Swiatek reached the semi-finals at the 2025 Indian Wells Open after beating Qinwen Zheng, getting revenge for their match at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Swiatek experienced one of the most painful losses of her tennis career at the Olympic Games in Paris last year. Having won the clay-court major four times in the last five years, she was the top favorite to win the Olympics at Roland Garros as well.
Swiatek seemingly cruised through the draw, but that was only until the semi-final match. The Pole shockingly lost to Zheng, 2-6, 5-7, recording one of the most surprising losses of her tennis career. She beat the Chinese player in all of their previous six meetings.
It was also one of the most painful losses for the four-time French Open champion. On Thursday in Indian Wells, she had a chance to get her revenge at the third WTA 1000 tournament of the season.
Swiatek certainly remembered her loss from Paris, and she started the match almost perfectly. The 23-year-old was the first to break and established a 3-0 lead early in the first set.
Prior to this match, the WTA World No. 2 didn’t lose more than two games in a match, so her opponent was likely scared of being on the receiving end of a similar result.
Those worries likely intensified when Zheng was broken again, and she was already down 1-5. But Swiatek couldn’t serve out the set. The Chinese player got back into play, but not for a long time. The Polish player won the first set 6-3.
Swiatek then started the second set with two breaks again, but she couldn’t convert her 5-1 lead into a win. Zheng broke back once more, dramatizing the match for a while.
Still, the Chinese player couldn’t stop Swiatek from winning this match 6-3, 6-3, to reach the semi-finals at the 2025 Indian Wells Open.
Both players had to battle challenging conditions, as it was very windy throughout the match, and it looked like the match would have to be suspended because of rain a few times. Still, the players were able to finish, and that was important to Swiatek.
“At the end, it got really windy, which made it super tricky. I’m happy that I was pushing until the end. It was a weird match with all the breaks and everything, but I wanted to be composed and focused, and I’m glad I did that.”
She will now try to rest and recover for her semi-final match. The second seed will take on the winner of the match between Mirra Andreeva and Elina Svitolina.
