Iga Swiatek left a tennis reporter during a Wimbledon pre-tournament press conference with an egg on his face over her Olympics participation.
Swiatek is due to compete at the 2024 Wimbledon Championships. The main draw action for the third Grand Slam of the season will begin on July 1st. The Pole is the top seed at the event and has been paired against Sofia Kenin in the standout first-round match in the women's tournament.
The World No. 1 has not played a competitive match since winning Roland Garros in early June. She withdrew from the star-studded WTA 500 event in Berlin shortly after that success.
Nevertheless, Swiatek is confident about her level, having arrived in London early to practice, and is happy with the way she's found her rhythm on grass, which is her trickiest surface.
During her presser ahead of her first-round match, an AP journalist made a mockery of himself when he asked Swiatek whether she had any plans to play in the Olympics in the future after withdrawing from this year's Games.
"You are not playing the Olympics this time round, but did you hope to play the Olympics in the future?"
Thoroughly amused and somewhat stunned, Swiatek corrected the journalist and confirmed her stance that she is playing in the Paris Olympics later in July and has not withdrawn from the tournament, as is the case with some other top players like Aryna Sabalenka and Ons Jabeur.
"Wait, I'm not playing Olympics? I'm playing for sure. Wrong player (smiling)."
Several tennis fans found fault in the incident, criticizing the journalist for coming to work unprepared and in such an important press conference. One user wrote, "He’s interviewing the Number One female tennis player on the planet, for goodness sake. Do your research, man!"
Another fan on X also added, "It takes about 5 seconds to search “is [enter player] playing the Olympics?” into your phone - how does this happen?"
The video of this bizarre question can be seen below.
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