Iga Świątek withdrew from the WTA tournament in Beijing at the last minute. She explained her decision as “personal matters”. This is the second major tournament that Świątek will not play in. She recently withdrew from the competition in Seoul.
The decision of Świątek was written about by media all over the world. It did not escape the attention of Russian journalists either. One of them – Pavel Nitkin – wrote a large text about the Polish representative, which was published on the website sports.ru.
In the text, the Russian journalist asks: why is Iga Świątek being criticized? And tries to find an answer to this question.
She is an extremely positive person. She doesn’t get into scandals, doesn’t argue with anyone and wins a lot. Her main hobby is reading books and building with Lego blocks. In general, she is an ideal ambassador for women’s tennis in the world,” the Russian wrote.
He listed the controversies related to Świątek, including frequent toilet breaks, delaying her opponent’s serve, trying to throw her opponents off balance and complaining about her tight schedule.
“If Świątek loses a set, you can be sure there will be a long bathroom break. There is nothing unusual about this – most players go to the bathroom or change after losing games. This is strictly within the rules,” he explains.
He noted that Świątek is the leader of the rankings and probably the most influential tennis player in the world. In his opinion, the Pole tries to use this influence, trying to relieve tennis players and complains about a tight schedule.
Her words angered former world number one, Evgeny Kafelnikov, who pointed out the hypocrisy and calculated that these were “as many as 18 tournaments”, and that the Pole had played exhibition matches during the season.
“Nobody in the world agrees with Kafelnikov. On the contrary, most of the players support Świątek,” Nitkin added.
