In the Warsaw quarterfinals of the Poland Open on Friday, Caroline Garcia stunned World No. 1 Iga Swiatek with a score of 6-1, 1-6, 6-4.
In her first two matches in her hometown, Swiatek displayed impressive form, losing just eight games. However, she fell to Garcia, who broke three times in a row while being aggressive on returns to win the opening set.
The second set is where the Pole improved her game a bit and went on to win that set. However, Garcia came back in the decisive set to outscore the Pole and gain the upper hand.
The world No. 1 entered her home competition with a winning streak of 16 games on the red dirt. By defeating Magdalena Frech and Gabriela Lee, she increased her winning streak on the surface to 18 games. But her run at the Poland Open was cut short at the hands of Garcia, who also prevented her from surpassing Serena Williams' illustrious 28 match win-streak on clay in 2013.
In light of this, tennis fans took to Twitter to express their shock at Iga Swiatek's defeat. Many fans were surprised and even offered consolation to the Polish player. Some noted that after losing to Alize Cornet of France in the third round at Wimbledon, she was eliminated by another French player.
One user pointed out that Iga Swiatek is a great player but the media has overhyped her by claiming that she is unbeatable, especially on clay, and wrote:
"A few weeks ago, media "experts" were saying Swiatek was unbeatable and they couldn't see anyone beating her especially on clay. Since then WR 38 Cornet and WR 45 Garcia have both beaten her. Iga undoubtedly a great player but the media were getting carried away once again."
Other users also congratulated Garcia on a good performance against Swiatek. The Frenchwoman has improved considerably this year and has played well on both clay and grass this season, winning a title at Bad Homburg and reaching the second week of Wimbledon.
Iga Swiatek organizes a charity event to raise funds for Ukraine

In her native Poland, Iga Swiatek organized a charity tennis event to raise money for kids and adolescents impacted by the violence in Ukraine. Besides Swiatek, the other competitors were former ATP World No. 31 Sergiy Stakhovsky, Polish junior player Martyn Pawelski and former World No. 2 Agnieszka Radwanska.
In addition to Andriy Shevchenko, the legendary footballer from Ukraine, who was present as a special guest, Elina Svitolina served as an umpire for the match.
The charity event raised PLN 2 million (£422,000), with the entire fund going to the Elina Svitolina Foundation, United 24 and UNICEF Polska, three organizations that are essential in delivering relief since the start of the crisis in Ukraine.