Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic won the biggest title of her career on Saturday, securing the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games gold medal 7-5 2-6 6-3 in two and a half hours over the Czech Republic’s Marketa Vondrousova. Participating in her first Olympic Games, Bencic has a chance to win double gold as she will compete in the women’s doubles final alongside Viktorija Golubic. Bencic/Golubic face Barbora Krejcikova/Katerina Siniakova as Switzerland and the Czech Republic have dominated the Women’s tennis portion of the games.
As for the gold medal singles match, Bencic got off to a strong start breaking first for a 2-0 lead, the pair would trade breaks throughout the opening set though with Bencic breaking at the very end for a 7-5 first set advantage, this came after Bencic saved two break points at 3-3 in the first.
In the second set the wheels came off for Bencic temporarily, the lower ranked Vondrousova dug deep, breaking to open the second set and cruising through her own service games, after another break she forced a third set 6-2.
The third set looked much like the first, five breaks of serve occured, with Bencic the ultimate victor after breaking at love for a 5-3 lead in the final set and then saving three break points in the ensuing service game to secure the gold medal. It took two match points and Vondrousova put up a fight, but in the end Bencic had just a bit more consistency. Her record at the Olympic games thus far improves to 10-0 and with a win in the doubles she would have double gold and after a perfect Olympics.
Bencic adds to the legacy of success for Swiss tennis in the Olympic games, Marc Rosset won the 1992 Barcelona gold medal for men’s singles, while Roger Federer and Stan Warwinka won doubles gold in 2008 in Beijing, Federer also won Silver in men’s singles at 2012 in London and Martina Hingis, a mentor for Bencic, won silver in Women’s doubles at Rio 2016.
Vondrousova’s silver medal is also the biggest result of her career, she entered the Olympics with just one WTA title and has never made it to the top 10, the world #42 found great form though and can use this tournament to propel her career to new heights. Bencic, meanwhile, will now be in the hunt for her first ever Grand Slam title, with this year’s US Open coming up quickly.
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