She ended up in a wheelchair, with a towel over her head and an ice bag on her legs, the Olympics of Spanish tennis player Paula Badosa, who retired in Tokyo due to heat stroke after losing the first set 6-3 of the quarter-finals against Czech Marketa Vondrousova. The twenty-three year old Spanish born in New York, number 29 in the world, felt a malaise while preparing to change sides for the start of the second set and asked for medical assistance: the ice packs placed on the neck were not enough and after a few minutes he decided to retire, receiving a hug from his opponent, number 42 in the ranking, fresh from the victory against the Japanese Naomi Osaka, who will now face the Ukrainian Elina Svitolina.
The heat also bothered Russian Daniil Medvedev, number 2 in the world, who complained about it after eliminating Fabio Fognini at the Ariake Tennis Park, with a recorded temperature of 31 degrees and a humidity of 72%. «I can finish the match, but I can die. And if I die, who takes responsibility? “, He said in post-match interviews, then irritated – as The Guardian reconstructs – even by a journalist who asked him if the athletes of the Russian Olympic team carry the stigma of scammers after the doping scandal and what he thought about it. “This is the first time in my life that I have not answered a question, you should be ashamed”, replied the tennis player and then turning to a communications officer said that the journalist should be removed from the Games and from the tennis tournament: “I don’t want to see him still in my interviews ».