Iga Swiatek wins Olympic bronze

Iga Swiatek becomes the first Polish player to win a tennis medal at the Olympics.

J-A-Z-D-A. 🥉

🇵🇱❤️ pic.twitter.com/qIBZ0kDMY1

— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) August 2, 2024

Bronze is known for its durability and its high resistance to corrosion. That makes it a fitting medal for world number 1 Iga Swiatek, even though it isn't the medal she expected to win, nor is it the medal that most of us expected her to win. Knocked out of gold medal contention by Zheng Qinwen (and her own inconsistent performance), the Polish star defeated Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 6-2, 6-1 today to seal her place on the medal stand.

During the match the (atrocious) commentators discussed the understandable fact that bronze medal winners feel more "happiness" than silver medal winners, who are haunted by their "almost gold" result. But who has to feel especially bad is the loser of the bronze medal match, in this case, Anna Karolina Schmiedlova. And in the Slovkaian player's case, the loss is particularly poignant because of the run that she had in Paris. Schmiedlova took out Katie Boulter, Biatriz Haddad Maia, Wimbledon and French Open finalist Jasmine Paolini, and Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova. Schmiedlova lost to Donna Vekic in the semifinals, and then lost to Swiatek in today's match. 

Mary Carillo and Jimmy Arias called the bronze medal match while constantly mispronouncing players' (including Swiatek's) names. And Arias--who recently declared that Swiatek was bad for women's tennis because she wears a cap and we can't see her face (not making this up), went so far as to suggest how Iga Swiatek should feel and think. 

In doubles, 3rd seeds Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini became the first Italian team to reach an Olympic tennis final. They defeated Karolina Muchova and Linda Noskova 6-3, 6-2 in the semifinals. In the other semifinal match, Mirra Andreeva and Diana Shnaider defeated 8th seeds Cristina Bucsa and Sara Sorribes Tormo 6-1, 6-2.

And in mixed doubles, the team of Katerina Siniakova and Tomas Machac will face off against Wang Xinyu and Zhang Zhizhen in the gold medal match.