Iga Swiatek finally got her revenge against Qinwen Zheng at the Indian Wells Open, and she admitted that it was something she thought about before the match.
Swiatek reached the semi-finals in Indian Wells after beating Zheng in their quarter-final meeting. It was a special match for multiple reasons. The two met already eighth time, and even though Swiatek won seven of those matches, she probably lost the most important one.
The Pole lost to Zheng in the semi-finals of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, and it was a very painful loss for her. Seven months later, the two met again. This time, Swiatek won the match 6-3, 6-3, easily moving into the semi-finals in Indian Wells.
Since their match was so special because of their history, Swiatek was naturally asked about facing Zheng and their previous meeting at the Olympics. The WTA World No. 2 player admitted that their previous meeting was not on her mind during their match at the WTA 1000 event in Indian Wells.
Of course, her coach, Wim Fissette, prepared her based on Swiatek’s loss to Zheng at the Olympics, but during the match, the Pole was not thinking about their previous meeting.
“Well, obviously Wim analyzed this match, and we kind of spoke about it a bit, but besides the fact that this was the only match that I lost against Qinwen, and I wanted to learn from it, it didn’t really cross my mind that much, because I knew that this is on hard court and I knew what I did wrong on the Olympics.”
“Honestly, I would say that clay didn’t help me on the Olympics, because these high spinny balls that came into place, it’s much easier to go forward and to play them when you know exactly how the ball is going to bounce. On clay, you can’t really do that. For sure, it was tricky then. Here I thought it’s gonna be more clear, and that’s what happened.”
While she didn’t actively think about her previous loss to Zheng during the match, Swiatek admitted that the fact that she lost to her before motivated her for this meeting.
The 23-year-old Polish player revealed that she wanted to get revenge against Zheng, even though it wasn’t anything personal. She just wanted to beat a player that beat her before.
“I want to show myself and everybody that I can do it, and I already knew before the Olympics match, I know now, but yeah, it’s not nice to lose to anybody, so for sure you want to have a little, I don’t know, like revenge, but it’s nothing personal. I think every player has that against everybody who they lose before.”
Swiatek will have another chance for revenge already in the semi-finals in Indian Wells. She will take on Mirra Andreeva, who beat her at the Dubai Championships recently.
