The duel between several Grand Slam champions took center stage during a Parisian day marked by rain and the suspension of almost the entire program.
In a day where only nine matches could be played, Roland Garros experienced its most exciting moment during the second round duel between Iga Swiatek (1st) and Naomi Osaka (134th). The multiple Grand Slam champions faced off on the main court at Roland Garros and did not disappoint.
7-6, 1-6 and 7-5, this is the score of the reigning champion and new winner of the Masters 1000 in Madrid and Rome, who had to fight until the end to continue with the options to win her fourth title in Paris. He had a match point against him and led 2-5 in the last set.
It is for this reason that Osaka’s thoughts after the duel were highly anticipated. The Japanese, without hiding her emotions, uttered a sentence that is now going around the world: “I cried leaving the field, but I realized that last year I saw, when I was pregnant, how Iga won this tournament and my dream was to face him. . When I think about it that way, I think I’m doing pretty well. “I try not to be too hard on myself,” said the 26-year-old tennis player who, after winning four Grand Slam tournaments, stopped her career to become a mother.
In fact, without losing momentum, he made it clear that he hoped to face it again and that his big goal for this return in 2024 was the North American cement tour, where in the past he won the US Open. “I played against her on her best surface. I’m a hardcourt girl, so I’d love to take it to my surface and see what happens. “I also said in Australia that I was preparing my tennis and everything for September,” he added.
A press conference where he made people laugh by admitting that he had not discovered that he had a match point in his favor: “I’m not even sure I had a match point. Did I really have it? “Oh wow, that sucks,” he confessed.
An anecdote that he tried to explain in more detail. “Honestly, I played it point by point. I often had to look at the scoreboard to see how far we were going. I knew what the score was when I served to win. I don’t regret anything, maybe the first game she served in and I went 0-30, I had doubts about subtracting from close and ended up doing it from distance. That’s the only thing,” he concluded.
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Source: Latercera
I’m Rose Brown , a journalist and writer with over 10 years of experience in the news industry. I specialize in covering tennis-related news for Athletistic, a leading sports media website. My writing is highly regarded for its quick turnaround and accuracy, as well as my ability to tell compelling stories about the sport.
