Monica Puig produced one of the biggest upsets of Rio 2016 by defeating Germany’s Angelique Kerber in the final of the women’s singles in three sets, 6-4, 4-6, 6-1.
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The silver medallist said Puig, ranked 34th in the world, put in one of the best performances of her career, making it hard to catch her.
“I know my country really wanted this victory”, she added.
Who did Puig beat to reach the Olympic final againsy Angelique Kerber? “I’m so excited”, Puig said.
“If I would’ve stopped crying, I probably would have started singing”, Puig said afterward, smiling at the thought.
“But I couldn’t. I was choking up every single time”.
Puig says the gold medal will give her confidence to beat top players on the WTA tour. Her training base is Boca Raton and she has never been past the fourth round of a Grand Slam tournament.
Puig defeated Polona Hercog, Garbiñe Muguruza, Laura Siegemund, and Czech Republic’s Petra Kvitova in the semi-final at the Olympic Tennis Stadium.
Olympic champion Monica Puig is back in action on Monday at the Western and Southern Open, with Serena Williams looking for a third title.
Kerber had cruised into the final without dropping a set as the second seed aimed to emulate Steffi Graf who was Germany’s last champion at the 1988.
Puig took out the No. 2-ranked Kerber with a relentless barrage of ground strokes and displayed a deft touch when required. She had to save six break points and only on her fourth match point did she convert. By the time Puig arrived for her news conference, singer Ricky Martin had tweeted congratulations.
“I played the best I could with a great fighting spirit”.
And she’ll have the support of Puerto Rico behind her. “This is definitely for them”, she added. “I still have family in Puerto Rico and I’ve gone back there quite a lot….”
“That island has given me so much”.
Using the same ferocious forehands that carried him past No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the first round a week ago, del Potro now will try to pull off a third surprise today, when he meets defending champion Andy Murray in the best-of-five-set final. That same formula worked against Nadal, with 18 of del Potro’s 19 groundstroke winners coming off his preferred wing. Doubles world no. 20 Safarova and doubles world no. 39 Strycova sweep doubles world no. 11 Hlavackova and doubles world no. 9 Hradecka in 7-5, 6-1 after a one hour and forty-eight minute match.
The world number 141 Del Potro, whose career was nearly ended by a series of wrist surgeries, triumphed after three hours and eight minutes of epic action. “It could be even better than the U.S Open tournament”, he said. With every match, I continued to learn and continued to grow.
Nadal leaves Rio with a gold medal – in men’s doubles – and vastly encouraged after an injury-riddled year.
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Kerber then left the court for a medical timeout, leading to a total delay of about 8 minutes.
