An injury to Iga Swiatek looked to derail her chances of reaching the Wuhan Open semifinal.
Swiatek looked in control of the match against compatriot Maja Chwalinska as she was a break up in the first set and even served for the first set.
However, the star suffered a leg injury during the match, which allowed Chwalinska to fight back to win the set 7-5. Swiatek appeared to get worse throughout the second set.
She fell to a 6-1 defeat to Chwalinska, who will now go ahead to the final against Sonay Kartal.
Many were confused why Swiatek did not retire in the match when she was dealing with a clear injury and now her physio has explained the reason.
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On X, Swiatek’s physio, Maciej Ryszczuk, responded to criticism of the star being allowed to continue playing the semifinal with a clear injury.
In a response to a fan saying “Why are you pushing it…”, Ryszczuk wrote: “Please stop talking nonsense, I told her three times to stop the match because it’s bad for her health.
“She made the decision herself to continue playing, and since she made that one, I support her as much as I can.”
It’s an interesting decision for Swiatek to continue playing with an injury as she is currently embroiled in a race for the WTA Finals.
Swiatek currently sits at ninth in the race and, with the top eight players qualifying for the event, she will need to pick up more points until the end of the season.
There is just two places left, with the likes of Swiatek, Karolina Muchova, and Marta Kostyuk looking to fill the remaining places.
Thankfully for Muchova, the Czech star has decided not to play the Ningbo Open, which gives her some breathing space in her quest to qualify.
However, if her injury is as serious as it looked against Chwalinska in the Wuhan Open semifinals, then the multi-time Grand Slam champion could be in real trouble.
If Swiatek does not qualify for the tournament, it will mark the first time she has not played the WTA Finals since the 2019 season.
In that time, Swiatek has won the tournament, in 2023, and reached the semifinals the year prior. However, three times the star has failed to get out of the round robin group stage.
This year’s WTA Finals are set to take place at Indian Wells for the first time in the tournament’s history, after several years in Saudi Arabia. The year-end tournament is set to begin on November 7th.
