Taxing Billie Jean King Cup Outing Leaves Iga Swiatek ‘Tired’ as Poland’s Glory Bid Falls Short
“Our calendar is crazy, probably the toughest one in sports,” – Iga Swiatek complaining about tight scheduling in tennis is nothing new. We’ve heard a lot about this in the last few months. She even said, “It makes tennis less fun for us.” Now, if we take a look at her 2024 season, she has played almost 70 matches this season, and it has been a mix of good and bad. Recently, we saw a massive upset in the SF of the BJK Cup Finals. Jasmine Paolini’s Italy defeated Iga Swiatek’s Poland by 2-1! What did Swiatek say after losing the battle even after spending more than four hours on the court?
Italy started off this battle in an emphatic manner with Lucia Bronzetti delivering an impressive victory over Poland’s Magda Linette in the first match by 6-4,7-6(3). However, after that, the world number 2, Iga Swiatek pulled back her team on level terms with a hard-fought victory against, Jasmine Paolini. She defeated her by 3-6,6-4,6-4 in the singles match, but her efforts of putting Poland into the final went in vain with a defeat in the doubles event. Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani defeated Iga Swiatek and Katarzyna Kawa by 7-5,7-5 in that match.
Previously, while speaking about this iconic tournament, Swiatek mentioned, “That’s my last tournament of the season, and playing for Poland is always amazing. Even if I’m gonna die on court, so I will do it, but give a hundred percent.” What did she say making an exit from the BJK Cup? “Honestly, I don’t think I ever been that tired (smiling). Also, you know, because of the last match we played. So yeah, but still, like, no regrets. I fought for every point. Yeah, there was maybe one rally at the set point that I could have played better, but tactically I messed up. But overall, you know, we fought till the end, and we gave it all,” said the world number 2.
However, she isn’t the only one to face the bitter side of taking part in this iconic team event. Even a few Italians complained about getting tired during the later phases of this epic contest. For example, while summing up her thoughts on the win, Jasmine Paolini said, “It was tough today… the intensity was insane, I was a little bit tired but I said to myself, you still have to play the doubles, you have to give everything for Italy, for my team.”
