BELINDA Bencic has claimed Olympic gold for Switzerland, overcoming a shaky second set to take out the win against unseeded Marketa Vondrousova who takes home silver for the Czech Republic. Meanwhile, fourth seed Ukrainian Elina Monfils took out the bronze clash, coming from behind to defeat Kazakh Elena Rybakina.

Bencic’s victory was by no means straightforward, only just claiming the opening set over Vondrousova, before the Czech talent fired up in the second set to really test the ninth seed Swiss. But Bencic was not going to lie down and give up the chase, eventually running down Vondrousova to take out the 7-5 2-6 6-3 victory.

“I mean, I don’t know what to say,” Bencic said. “I mean, it’s amazing. I cannot really believe it right now. I just don’t get it yet.”

Whilst both players were riddled with errors, Bencic registered 60 – split evenly forced and unforced – as Vondrousova was shaky with 41 forced and 36 unforced to finish with 77 overall. Both were fairly consistent on their second serve, however Vondrousova’s five double faults hurt as she was forced to rely on that second serve to get the job done.

“I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry,” she said. “I didn’t think it would be possible. I was fighting for my life, and it worked out.

“I cannot believe it worked out.”

Bencic has the chance to go two for two, joined by Viktorija Golubic as Switzerland currently goes for gold in the women’s doubles final in another Swiss-Czech clash.

“I will play like it’s my last match of my career,” Bencic said. “For me, it’s not ‘this tournament’, it’s the freaking Olympic Games.”

“For me, this is the biggest thing ever for an athlete, so I cannot believe I have two medals and one of them is gold, and one of them is to be decided.”

In the bronze medal clash, it was Monfils who took out Rybakina despite a rocky opener, as the Kazakh came out flying to dominate the first. But the Ukrainian has had an excellent season and proved that this was just a blip in the radar, as she fired back to claim the second set tiebreaker and run that momentum home to claim the 1-6 7-6(5) 6-4 victory and the medal.

It was Rybakina’s unforced error rate that saw her go down in the tight matchup, registering a whopping 57 unforced errors with the intensity and pressure getting to her. Whilst Rybakina hit more winners (40-17), Monfils was far more controlled and won marginally more points of her first serve (66.7 per cent compared to 65.2 per cent) to take out victory, winning when it counted to steal a medal chance from Kazakhstan in the process.

OLYMPICS WOMEN’S GOLD MEDAL MATCH RESULT:

[9] Belinda Bencic (SUI) defeated Marketa Vondrousova (CZE) 7-5 2-6 6-3

OLYMPICS WOMEN’S BRONZE MEDAL MATCH RESULT:

[4] Elina Monfils (UKR) defeated [15] Elena Rybakina (KAZ) 1-6 7-6 6-4

Picture credit: Kopatsch/Sato/Sidorjak