Iga Swiatek is subject to criticism from the fans for an incident during her Indian Wells semi-final.
At times the Pole was visibly frustrated during her three-set defeat to Mirra Andreeva, which brought her title defence to an end.
The 23-year-old is usually a calm and composed player on court who shows little during her matches.
Therefore, seeing the World number two hit a ball away in frustration when things were not going her way, was surprising for fans to witness.
Tennis fans react to Iga Swiatek’s behaviour they described as ‘unacceptable’
During Friday’s Indian Wells semi-final, Andreeva took the lead over Iga Swiatek following a dominant tiebreak, where she lost just one point.
Not going down without a fight, Swiatek responded emphatically and lost one game on the way to taking the second set.
But after Andreeva surged into a 4-1 lead in the final set, Swiatek’s frustrations boiled over as she slammed a ball into the ground, which almost hit both a ballkid and her team’s box.
Fans were not happy as one said on X: “Iga Swiatek slamming the ball from the ball kid, and it almost HIT both the ball kid and her team! All the anger from Iga in sets 1 and 3, just totally unacceptable from her.”
Another viewer said: “She should have been disqualified,” while this fan added: “That is just really bad.” One of Swiatek’s fans said: “As much as I love her, this was unacceptable and she needs to apologize. Hitting a ball towards a ball kid is not okay.”
This angry fan wrote: “Wondering if WTA will sanction this unacceptable behavior. Don’t you dare doing this to the ball kids,” while another said: “This is unacceptable and unnecessary. I get that she was upset over her level, but she can’t do this. I expect a fine @BNPPARIBASOPEN @WTA.”
Iga Swiatek loses second successive match to Mirra Andreeva
For the second time in as many tournaments, Andreeva has recorded a win over Swiatek.
Swiatek lost 3-6, 3-6 to the Russian in Dubai and while their Indian Wells contest went to three sets, the Pole still was unable to secure victory.
Andreeva is now on an 11-match win streak after a 7-6(1), 1-6, 6-3 victory and will try to win her second successive WTA 1000 title.
“I feel that I was dealing with the nerves and the pressure pretty good, so I just feel proud of myself,” Andreeva said after her win.
“After she literally killed me in the second set, I was just ‘well, OK, might just try to fight’. There is not much I could do about it. She was playing amazing.
“And I just kind of decided to grind and fight for every point. It doesn’t matter how I put the ball in. But I have to put it in. So I just try to do everything and in the end, it was not too bad.”
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