Belinda Bencic won the Olympic women's singles gold medal.
After cashing in on the match point, Belinda Bencic threw away her racket and lay on the pitch with the Olympic ring logo, crying.
"Getting a gold medal is something I've always dreamed of, and I never even thought it would become a reality. Now, my emotions... Very high. You know, even coming here as an athlete and coming to the Olympics is already a great thing. ”
On the last day of July 2021, Tokyo Olympic women's singles gold medalist Bencic wrote on his social networking site.
For this day, she began to compete on the Tour at the age of 15 for nearly 10 years. As the sister-in-law of Singis, the partner of the Federer Hopman Cup, and the former WTA's "genius girl", she used an Olympic gold medal to tell the world:
You don't have to "hurt Zhongyong", 24-year-old me will continue to meet the big scene!
After winning the gold, Bencic burst into tears in an instant.
In Tokyo, turn yourself into a "crying ghost"
It was Bencic's first Olympic Games.
Waving the national flag into the Swiss Olympic delegation and attending the opening ceremony with them; seeing the athletes of other events in the Olympic Village, wishing each other well... All of this made her very happy.
However, as the game progressed, she played in the women's singles and partnered Grubic in the women's doubles, and she did not have so much time to "see the world" at the beginning, and the two-line operation forced her to focus all her energy on the field and post-game recovery.
After reaching the women's singles and women's doubles final four, she set herself the goal of standing on a higher podium on behalf of Switzerland, and this pressure made her a "crying ghost".
You know, whether she underwent wrist injury surgery or was questioned about the "genius fall", she had never cried so much.
The semi-final against Lebakina was the most important battle for medals. Bencic finished with 2 hours and 42 minutes, and the score was locked at 7-6, 4-6, 6-3. She fell to her knees on the pitch and cried like she had won the championship, and all the pressure poured out at that moment.
In the final with Vandrosova, she had already locked in a medal and she let go completely.
Bencic in the game.
She won the first set, which was fairly close to the score, survived the second set of her own physical decline, and the decisive set fought back with the first break, and finally drew a perfect end to the battle with victory and another tear.
"In two and a half hours, she won a spectacular and exciting game 7-5, 2-6, 6-3 with her signature, calculated way of hitting the ball."
The WTA official website released the news of Bencic's victory for the first time on the social networking site. On both sides of the capitalized "OLYMPIC GOLD", locked with two emoji gold emojis.
Dementieva and Puig joined in the congratulations, welcoming her to the "Gold Club" and saying the gold medal was much more important to them than any previous winner.
Because mathematically, there are 4 Grand Slams a year, and there is only one Olympic Games in 4 years; and this year's Tokyo Olympics, all the players waited 5 years.
Singis (left) has been Benci's mentor.
Dedicate the gold medal to Singis and Federer
“History。 ”
When Bencic won the women's singles gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, Federer, who has 20 Grand Slam men's singles titles, @ her on social media.
As an emoji eighth-grade scholar, he was paired with the Swiss flag, a gold medal and a star-eyed expression, as well as a photo of Bencic smiling at the award ceremony showing off the gold medal.
As a compatriot, a senior and a gold medalist in the men's doubles at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Federer did not come to the scene, but he knew how difficult it was to get a medal on the Olympic field.
Federer congratulated Bencic.
As a partner of the Swiss national team Hopman Cup, he also knows very well the difficulties of Bencic along the way.
The story begins 7 years ago.
In 2014, a Swiss girl who was mentored by Singis's mother, Melanie Molito, made her debut in New York. At the age of 17, she defeated former world number one Jankovic in the fourth round of the US Open, becoming the youngest Grand Slam women's singles quarterfinalist since the 2006 French Open.
In the turn of the year, she once again contributed a stunning performance at the Rogers Cup in Toronto. She beat Bouchard, Wozniacki, Liski and Ivanovic to reach the final four, before winning the cup in the semi-finals and finals against world number one Serena Williams and second Halep.
Federer and Bencic had excellent personal relationships.
That event allowed her to break through the "glory barrier" of Two Swiss predecessors, Federer and Singis, and emit her own light.
But just as the two-time Grand Slam junior girls' singles winner was about to make a big splash in the adult world, injuries came in. In 2017, she underwent wrist surgery and was forced to recuperate for 5 months. Back on the field, her WTA ranking has fallen to 318th.
She had to start all over again, starting with the ITF tournaments — the ones she skipped when she was called "The Gifted Girl," and she went back as a Grand Slam quarter-finalist and WTA 1000 season champion.
Fortunately, she has super powerful support groups, they are Federer and Singis.
The former took her to the Hopman Cup in Australia in early 2018 and won it, which was the starting point where she was able to return; the latter often sent her encouraging messages and accompanied her through those questioned years.
So, when Bencic won the gold medal in Tokyo, she said it didn't just belong to herself, but to her two predecessors.
Bencic and Federer are paired in mixed doubles.
For this moment, I have struggled all my life
"Federer texted me on the morning of the final and he said it was the day you achieved your dreams. It made me so happy, I won for Martina (Singis) and Roger, who have achieved so much that I can't do anyway. ”
What Bencic calls "their achievements" is familiar to us: Federer has 20 Grand Slam men's singles titles, and Singis has 5 Grand Slam women's singles titles, and they are all well-deserved icons in the history of tennis.
However, they did not win a singles gold medal at the Olympics.
"Swiss Kings" had gold medals in men's doubles at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Wawrinka, while "Swiss Princess" partnered Bacsinsky at the 2016 Rio Olympics to win the women's doubles silver medal.
These are all carried on The burden of Bencic, in the name of the entire Swiss country.
"I didn't know whether to cry or laugh, I really didn't think I could do it myself, it felt like I had struggled all my life for this moment. Everything has become a reality, it is real reality, it is crazy..."
After the game, Bencic, who was in tears while happy, spent a long time calming himself and then walked to the mixed interview area.
"I really left everything I had in this field. Whether it's singles or doubles, I think of them as the last game of my tennis career. ”
"My whole life," she used to sum up her Olympic gold medals.
Although only 24 years old, Bencic has been running around the tennis court with his father since he was two years old, joining The Melanie Tennis School of Mother Singis at the age of 7, winning multiple ITF titles at the age of 15, experiencing injuries, lows and doubts, and now winning the Olympic gold medal, and she has lived a fast and condensed life for the past decade.
This qualifies her to use "a lifetime" to describe the feeling of the moment, the feeling of being on top of the peak.
In the future, she got rid of the title of "genius girl" and used the Olympic gold medal to prove that she was not "Zhongyong", saying that she hoped that she could still go far and higher, especially in those big scenes.
Like Federer, Wawrinka, and Singis, they are all from Switzerland and love Swiss chocolate the most.
Author: The Paper's contributing writer Carmen
Source: The Paper