Actually everything was already over for Belinda Bencic at this French Open 2018 – but the comebacker from Switzerland didn’t give up.
In the second set, Bencic faced Italian qualifier Deborah Chiesa with three match points in a row. But Bencic gathered all his energies, suddenly struggled with the courage of despair and without any fluttering nerves. Bencic not only fended off these three points, but two more match points. She turned the game completely upside down, turned it around and turned it around like an unleashing artist. And then, after her 3:6, 7:6 (7:2), 6:3 success, she was so broken and exhausted that she could not even vent her joy: “It was too exhausting to scream her luck out,” said the 21-year-old after this particularly valuable Paris experience.
Bencic, once celebrated as the new Miss Swiss and future greatness in world tennis, has not had an easy time. There was a difficult process of cutting the cord by trainer father Ivan Bencic, who should only be a father in the future. There were complicated changes in management, the long-time protégé Marcel Niederer was given a running ban. And there was always injury, as was the case this spring, when a fatigue fracture in the right foot provoked a forced break.
Bencic had played her last match in mid-March. She played Jelena Ostapenko, the reigning French Open winner at the top tournament in Indian Wells in the second round. Bencic fiercely fought, but after three hard-fought sets, the millionaire game in the Californian desert was over. And then she had to watch again from the sidelines as the tennis caravan moved around, most recently in the European clay court series. “It’s frustrating when you can’t play. And lose ground,” says Bencic. Most recently she had trained again in Switzerland and prepared for the French Open – rather an exception, as she usually set up her camp for exercise units in a motley and seemingly everywhere. Sometimes in Prague, sometimes in Monte Carlo, sometimes in Dubai, sometimes in the USA, at the Evert Academy. She thinks it’s good to have a change,” says Bencic.
In Paris, the Bencic team is manageably large. Apart from manager Stuart Duguid, only fitness trainer Martin Hromec is present, and coach Iain Hughes is obviously missing, who is not known for how long he will continue in this position. Bencic was unclear, the answers on this topic were foggy. Bencic considers the tournament in France’s capital only as a stopover anyway, more attention is directed to the grass court tournaments and of course the season highlight in Wimbledon. “But every victory is beautiful, of course, and welcome now,” says Bencic. Especially when he is won after considerable resistance and great drama, as in the match against Chiesa. “I showed really good morale and will”, Bencic said, “it was rather thin in a playful way. “I’ll have to do better than that.”
Bencic now took the usual break from competition at Grand Slam tournaments more than gratefully, “it had already been a tough test” after the two-month time-out. In round two, she will face Slovakia’s Magdalena Rybarikova, the world’s number 18, but not a proven sand court specialist. Bencic doesn’t have much to lose, but she has a lot to win – which could make her dangerous a little longer in Paris.