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Tennis

Top Seed Iga Swiatek Exits Wimbledon After Losing to Wildcard Elina Svitolina

Iga Swiatek entered this year’s Wimbledon as the top seed, but she failed to live up to the high expectations. Wildcard Elina Svitolina stunned the world no. 1 after returning to the tour in April to reach the Wimbledon semi-finals. Swiatek came into this face-off as a clear favorite, but she had a hard time standing her ground to Svitolina as her forehand crumbled. The Ukrainian eventually won 7-5 6-7 (5-7) 6-2, scoring her first major Grand Slam triumph since returning to tennis this spring after giving birth to her daughter in October. Former world no. 3 Svitolina said it was an unbelievable feeling to score this victory at Wimbledon and praised Swiatek for being one of the most vocal WTA players to stand against the war in her home country. “I'm going to enjoy this with my team. At the beginning of the tournament, if somebody would tell me that I will be in the semi-final and beat the world number one, I would say they are crazy. Iga is not only a great champion, she is also an unbelievable person,” said Svitolina. With this victory, Svitolina set the semi-finals meeting with another shock winner – the unseeded Marketa Vondrousova, who defeated American fourth seed Jessica Pegula.