PARIS — Iga Swiatek, the world No. 1, will have to settle for a bronze medal at best in the Olympic tennis tournament after losing to Zheng Qinwen of China.

The sixth seed did what was nearly impossible by beating Swiatek on the clay of Roland Garros, becoming only the third player, after Simona Halep and Maria Sakkari, to do so in the previous five years. Zheng triumphed 6-2, 7-5, coming back from 0-4 down in the second set after the Pole and four-time French Open champion looked to have started rolling downhill.

On another hot and steamy day in Paris, Zheng attacked Swiatek from the beginning, taking the ball early and pounding it back at the 23-year-old, giving her repeated doses of her own medicine. Swiatek hardly helped her own cause, as her strokes, usually so impeccable on clay, were absent for much of the match. Even her backhand, often the more reliable of her two shots, too often flew off the court as she pressed to try to find the tennis that has made her the world’s dominant female player for more than two years.

Even when, at 1-2 down in the first set, she immediately broke Zheng back to love, Swiatek could not sustain the shift in momentum. Zheng attacked her second serve throughout, consigning Swiatek to winning just four of 15 points behind it, and teasing out double faults as the world No. 1 felt forced to go bigger.

Zheng and Swiatek battled in front of a packed crowd on Court Philippe-Chatrier, whose noise and energy level grew as the upset became more likely. Swiatek, who has worked on trying to maintain her composure, grew frustrated as she struggled to play with the easy dominance that generally characterizes her play on her favorite court, screaming to the Polish coaching box at one point late in the second set.

Swiatek struggled to live with Zheng’s high, looping forehands that sapped her energy and forced her to generate pace, a tactic that Zheng herself had found difficult to handle against Germany’s Angelique Kerber in the previous round.

In the crucial 11th game of that set, Swiatek committed four errors from the baseline, including a backhand well wide, to give Zheng the chance to serve out the match. Having led 4-0, even her speciality — playing fearlessly with a lead — deserted her when she needed it, and Zheng capitalised, saving a break point that would have brought a second-set tiebreak before clinching the match.

Swiatek will now face either Donna Vekic of Croatia or Anna Karolina Schmiedlova of Slovakia in the bronze medal match, while Zheng will play the other for Olympic gold.

(Top photo: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images)