Keys fended off two break points to finally get on the board in game five and she had break point as Kvitova served for the match, but there was to be no miraculous comeback as the world number 14 clung on. Ranked 34th, she added her surprising win over the second-seeded Kerber – the Australian Open champion and Wimbledon runner-up this year – to those she picked up in Brazil against two other past major title winners, Garbine Muguruza and Petra Kvitova. And though Keys came back strong to win the second set, she was frustrated throughout the match, slamming her racket often. Keys was about to take the set at 5-4, but Kvitova rallied to a 7-5 victory. She had two crucial break points again – which were set points – when Kvitova was serving at 4-5 to stay in the set.
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21-year-old Keys is originally from Rock Island, Illinois.
Puig is also the first woman representing Puerto Rico to earn a medal of any color at an Olympics, and when she finished a tense closing game – saving six break points and converting her fourth match point – she dropped her racket and went over to collect a flag she paraded across the court. “I had so many troubles with injuries and everything”. “I couldn’t really find the best tennis in me”. Jana Novotna took the bronze in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
“It’s not so easy to see the positives right now but I’ll definitely take things away and use them and use everything that happened here just as experience, learn from it and move on”, Keys said after the match.
“There were a lot of matches I could have potentially lost, and I was able to fight”. I hope I’m going to celebrate it. Keys fought hard, but was ultimately unable to deliver Olympic hardware for Team USA, a task that fell exclusively to her once Serena Williams and Venus Williams were both eliminated from contention earlier in the bracket. “It means nearly everything, definitely”.
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“I’m so happy that I saved my best tennis for this event”. And I’m very proud I could bring it to the Czech Republic.
