Iga Swiatek opens up on tearful Madrid Open exit after having vital signs checked | Tennis | Sport

Iga Swiatek has revealed that a virus is going around at the Madrid Open after she was forced to retire in the middle of her third-round match. The former champion was broken at the beginning of the final set of her match against Ann Li and immediately went to her bench, putting her head in her hands. The No. 4 seed had her vitals checked and briefly attempted to play on before retiring with Li leading 7-6(4) 2-6 3-0.

Swiatek has now said she started feeling dizzy and uncoordinated early in the third set and ultimately decided to stop the match when her energy dropped dramatically. The six-time Grand Slam champion is now hoping to recover in time for the Italian Open, which kicks off at the beginning of May.

“The last two days were pretty terrible. I think I have some virus, so it’s been some hours, fine, some hours, pretty bad. So I heard there is something going on between players that the virus is somewhere on site,” the 2024 champion said a couple of hours after her mid-match retirement.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine in a couple of days, but I had zero energy. I just felt really bad physically and yesterday, even worse. So I thought maybe today it’s gonna be better, but maybe it was, but not enough to play a match.

“I knew that it was gonna be hard, but I still wanted to try, because I have been sick, like, twice in my career, and I could still win most matches. So I guess it all depends on how bad it is, and I guess this time it was worse than before. The symptoms are not something you want to hear about.”

This is just the second mid-match retirement of Swiatek’s career, after a leg injury forced her out of the 2023 Italian Open. She wanted to try and push through the virus, but things took a turn in the final set.

Swiatek added: “I still felt like I had a chance, but then in the third set, I started feeling a little bit dizzy and not really coordinated, so I couldn’t really drink anything, because I just felt like I’m full constantly, and the energy went down, like, drastically. Until the third set started, I felt like I still have a chance, so this was the case right now.

“I always want to try, but if I feel like I can’t do it anyway. It just doesn’t make sense. And I wanted to, but in the third set I started feeling really bad.”

Swiatek felt she was playing well before an illness cut her Madrid Open campaign short, but she is already looking ahead to the next WTA 1000 event in Rome, where she is a three-time former champion.

“We’re probably gonna go practice somewhere else, because Rome has much different conditions than here. But it doesn’t really matter because we have a lot of time. The first thing is to just recover, and I’m sure I’ll get some days to just, you know, get rid of this thing. I’m sure in three to four days, I’ll be fine.”