By Martyn Herman and Sybille de La Hamaide
PARIS (Reuters) -Women’s top seed Iga Swiatek survived a scare against American Danielle Collins to reach the Olympic tennis singles semi-finals after her opponent retired in the deciding set at a hot and humid Roland Garros on Wednesday.
The Pole, overwhelming favourite for gold in light of her four French Open titles, was rattled and stunned by a fierce ball to the body early in the third set, but composed herself to earn a 6-1 2-6 4-1 victory.
It was not vintage Swiatek by any means but she lived to fight another day as the first Pole to reach the semi-finals at an Olympic tennis tournament.
The 23-year-old claycourt specialist will face China’s Zheng Qinwen for a place in the gold-medal match after Zheng outlasted German veteran Angelique Kerber in a three-set thriller.
Swiatek had cruised through the opening three rounds and was in total command after a fast start against eighth seed Collins.
But her game suddenly went off the boil in the second set as Collins became the aggressor from the back of the court.
“In the second set I think she felt like she had nothing to lose, so she could speed up the game,” Swiatek said.
Things had not started well for Swiatek in the third set when she was off-balance at the net and Collins drilled a groundstroke that caught Swiatek in the midriff — the American walking around the net to check on her opponent.
But it was Collins who began to suffer in the decider and had one visit from the trainer before calling it a day.
“It was very challenging for me to toss up the ball and serve and it got a little bit worse so I needed to kind of get some ice on it right away,” Collins said, adding that she wanted to preserve herself ahead of the doubles she is playing with Desirae Krawczyk.
The American blamed her injury on the lack of fresh water on the courts, which she said provoked heat stress and an abdominal injury, amid extremely hot weather.
Several players have been complaining about the lack of insulated bottles this week to keep their drinks cool.
“It’s incredibly disappointing because you work so hard your whole life to make it to the Olympics and this is my first and my last Olympics, and something like not having adequate water on court. That’s really frustrating and it’s really sad,” she said.
(Additional reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide; Editing by Christian Radnedge and Hugh Lawson)
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