Iga Swiatek was left confused by comments made by Danielle Collins after their Olympic Games showdown.
The World number one took on the fiery American in the quarter-finals and it was the Swiatek’s toughest test up to that point in the competition.
Both players were competing for a spot in the last four where they would be guaranteed to play for a medal.
But during the intense Olympic Games matchup, something happened which got plenty of fans talking.
What has Iga Swiatek said about the Danielle Collins controversy at the Olympics?
During Swiatek’s Olympics quarter-final with Danielle Collins, the American was due to serve and she seemed bothered by Swiatek on the other side of the net.
She could be heard saying “play to the server’s pace”, and in the deciding set the 30-year-old accidentally struck the five-time Grand Slam champion with the ball.
Collins was later forced to retire from the match due to injury, but afterwards she shockingly implied the Swiatek’s concern for her wellbeing was “fake.”
“I told Iga she didn’t have to be insincere about, you know, my injury,” Collins said. “There’s a lot that happens on camera, and there are a lot of people with a ton of charisma and come out and are one way on camera and another way in the locker room.
“And I just haven’t had the best experience, and I don’t really feel like anybody needs to be insincere. They can be the way that they are. I can accept that, and I don’t need that fakeness.”
Since then, Swiatek has commented on Collins’ actions, and does not understand what prompted the American’s comments. “To this day, I still don’t understand where her comment came from,” she told WP SportoweFatky.
“I decided there was no point in looking into it. I focused on myself. I’m a professional, and things like that don’t affect how I play tennis later on.”
Are Iga Swiatek and Danielle Collins playing at the Cincinnati Open?
It would be a compelling contest should Swiatek and Collins do battle at least one more time with Collins set to retire at the end of this season.
There is no chance of that happening at the ongoing Cincinnati Open however, as Collins is still not fit to compete after getting injured at the Olympics.
She also missed the Canadian Open in Toronto, as did Swiatek. But the top seed will be at the Cincinnati Masters in what will be her first hard court tournament since the Miami Open in March.
Ahead of her first match in Cincinnati, Swiatek said: “I know that the first tournament on hardcourts isn’t going to be easy.
“So I’m going to try to treat it as a practice tournament, but not in a way that I don’t care – more in a way that I want to implement all the stuff that I practiced on. I think it’s the best approach for me now.”
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