Tennis player Monica Puig won the first Olympic gold medal for Puerto Rico, defeating Angelique Kerber of Germany, 6-4, 4-6, 6-1, in the women’s singles final on Saturday, culminating the best week of her sporting life.
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Rio de Janeiro (dpa) – Two tennis stars stared with stony faces while Monica Puig, the world’s number 34 from Puerto Rico, cried with joy as she received her Olympic gold medal.
“If I was destined to win a medal, it would have been in doubles and Puerto Rico did not have another player that I could have played with”, she said.
The 22-year-old unseeded Puig also upset 14th-seeded Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-3, 6-2 in the second round of this hard-court event, which is being played at the Olympic Tennis Center. “I just owe this one to them”.
Kerber, 28, levelled the final in the 10th game but needed four set points to get the job done.
The No. 2-seeded Murray earned a gold in singles and a silver in mixed doubles for Britain at the 2012 London Games. She went on to win the fifth – but Kerber held serve to force a seventh game in the last set, at 5-1.
Kerber hadn’t dropped a set all tournament long, but Puig made sure this match would go the distance after taking the opening set 6-4.
Del Potro, now ranked 141st in the world, revenged the doubles’ second round loss to eventual victor Nadal, winning 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5) to set up a men’s final meeting on Sunday with defending champion Andy Murray of Britain, who overpowered Japanese Kei Nishikori 6-1, 6-2 in the other semifinal. “She had nothing to lose, she was going for it”, she said. By the time Puig arrived for her news conference, singer Ricky Martin had tweeted congratulations.
Puig knocked off the world’s second-ranked player in Kerber in the final, and also beat No. 4 Garbine Muguruza earlier in the tournament.
“It would be unbelievable and it would be the biggest honour in the world”, Puig said on the prospect of winning gold.
“I didn’t expect to reach the final, beating Djokovic and Rafa”, del Potro said, “but I did, and I get a medal, and it’s awesome for me”.
However with her fourth gold medal point it was Puig who prevailed during an emotional end to the match. “So this one is not for me”.
Kerber was leading 40-30 and missed a chance to break Puig’s serve and make it 5-2, in a point that saw Puig dig out several tough shots as Kerber sought to put the game away. Puig completely changed the fortune of her country at the Olympic Games by confirming her name as the only female from Puerto Rico to win a medal of any kind in the history of the Games. Sock and Johnson won the bronze medal in men’s doubles on Friday night.
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On the men’s singles side, Japan’s 4th-seeded Kei Nishikori will square off against reigning gold medalist and 2nd-seeded Andy Murray in a semifinal.
