Belinda Bencic's Most Celebrated Insomnia

Fernando Murciego | 8 Aug 2024 | 07.00

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How much we miss Belinda Bencic. It is true that she was never one of the most consistent players, that she always had a certain allergy to clay courts, as well as being quite prone to injuries. However, when the Swiss player was on form, it was a pleasure to watch her. We don't see her now because she became a mother for the first time a few months ago, so she will spend her 2024 away from the courts. The only thing left for us is to remember her through her greatest achievement, that gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, where she also found the strength to win another silver medal in doubles.

"The truth is that I was awake all night due to the nerves I had, it was impossible to sleep at all," begins to explain the Flawil native in an interview conducted this week by the colleagues at WTA. "There were too many emotions running through my body, the sensation of being so close to achieving your dream. For me, moreover, playing both singles and doubles every day was exhausting, added to the heat. I was almost out of energy, so I woke up very tired the next day, struggling with it and thinking that the moment was now or never. The adrenaline of that last day was what helped me," she recalls three summers after that dramatic final against Marketa Vondrousova.

"The memory is still there but, definitely, it doesn't feel like three years ago," warns the former world No. 4. "It is very present in my memory, but three years is a long time. Many things have changed in all this time. It comes to my mind, for example, the match with Krejcikova in the round of 16, after losing the first set 6-1 there was a rain delay, and I started talking on the phone with my coach, Sebastian Sachs. He was following the match on streaming, so he told me what I needed to change. When I came out, I tried something completely different, playing more freely, that was a great battle with delicate moments for both," she analyzes as if it had happened yesterday.

Once she reached both finals, Bencic's mission in Tokyo was already fulfilled, although she herself admits that she was never satisfied. "At first, you don't even think about the option of winning a medal, that comes match by match. Maybe I was so busy, playing singles and doubles on the same day, that I simply didn't have time to think beyond. What I do remember is how the pressure kept increasing, every day it was greater. I remember turning off my mobile phone to avoid receiving messages from people: everyone was asking me for the medal! Once I made it to the final, I started crying because I couldn't believe I had succeeded, although once there, what you want is the gold," she evaluates emotionally.

GLORY FOR SWITZERLAND

It is evident that those two medals represent the biggest milestone, to date, in Belinda Bencic's career. However, the achievement is much more significant if we look at the country she represents, a country that longed to regain that individual gold medal that had only been tasted in the hands of Marc Rosset at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. An unprecedented success that brought a lot of happiness to her compatriots, as the player herself recalls.

"Of course, I knew the fact, it is still incredible for me to think that neither of the two –Federer-Wawrinka– could win it individually, so I had to manage to do it (laughs). In Switzerland, it generated as much excitement as if I had won a Grand Slam title, it somehow closed a chapter for my country: now we had won everything. Every time I think about it, I feel proud of myself, of what I achieved, impossible to forget those emotions. It is very different from what could happen to you in any other tournament, a great experience that will stay in my mind forever," concludes the 27-year-old tennis player.

This news is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, El insomnio más celebrado de Belinda Bencic

WTA