Welcome to "Next Up," where USOpen.org will showcase rising stars on the ATP and WTA tours who could be in line to make a splash to remember at the 2020 US Open. Today we profile American CiCi Bellis, who will compete at the US Open for the first time since 2017.
The stop-start rhythm of the 2020 tennis season is a familiar beat for 21-year-old US Open wild card CiCi Bellis. The former world No. 35 missed more than 18 months of action from March 2018 to November 2019 while undergoing four surgeries.
“I had so much time off before, [the COVID suspension] almost felt like nothing compared to what I was dealing with before,” she told USOpen.org. “So it was, I’m sure, a little bit easier for me since I’ve been through it recently.”
In 2019, months after one doctor told her she would never play tennis again, she made a successful return at a Houston Challenger event in November, qualifying and notching two main-draw wins, before another two months off until the 2020 season.
Bellis, who trains at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Fla., capped off three January tournaments with a third-round run at the Australian Open. Her Grand Slam return included a win over No. 20 seed Karolina Muchova and a three-set loss to No. 16 Elise Mertens.
The American knew her game could compete at that level, but was still easing her body into the physical demands of the WTA Tour.
“I had been training for so much time before that. I just wasn’t really physically quite ready for matches,” she said of her preseason period. “I knew I was playing really well, but it was definitely really nice to come back and have those good matches since it had been so long.”
With her two wins in Melbourne, she has now reached the third round at each of the majors except Wimbledon, which she played just once, in 2017 (a year she started on the sidelines with hip and hamstring issues).
Now for the first time in her career, it seemed that Bellis was back on track, with big things up next.
But due to the COVID-19 suspension, that was the last match she played until August, at the Top Seed Open in Lexington, Ky. Two dominant victories—over Americans Francesca Di Lorenzo and Jessica Pegula—brought her to the quarterfinals, where she lost to Switzerland’s Jil Teichmann.
“My arm feels great, my body feels great, but most importantly my mind feels great,” Bellis said after topping Pegula, 6-3, 6-2, in the second round.
With match-play the most precious commodity during this restart, Bellis also tested herself in some practice matches in Kentucky. “It’s a good start for me, for sure,” she reflected.
After the solid showing in the tune-up event, she will have two opportunities to build on that result in New York, having received a wild card into the Western & Southern Open qualifying tournament, in addition to the US Open main draw.
It will be Bellis’ second dance as a wild card in the big city.
She was the belle of the ball as a 15-year-old wild card at the 2014 US Open, when she defeated No. 12 seed and that year’s Australian Open finalist, Dominika Cibulkova, in her WTA debut. (A former junior world No. 1, Bellis earned that wild card by winning the USTA Girls’ 18s National Championships.)
In very different circumstances this year, Bellis has a chance to turn the page on that fairytale by starting a new chapter of Grand Slam success and putting her first Grand Slam second-week run in the books.
That’s not to say Bellis hasn’t had top-level success. She has three WTA Top-10 victories to her name and has reached a pair of Premier 5 quarterfinals, in Dubai in 2017 and Qatar in 2018. Prior to her recent injury woes, Bellis was named the 2017 WTA Newcomer of the Year in recognition of a year that also included two semifinal runs, one each at the Premier and International levels.
The recent list of winners for that particular award includes the two most recent US Open champions: Naomi Osaka and Bianca Andreescu.
With a clean bill of health, Bellis has the potential to challenge for a major title of her own in the coming years. For the San Francisco native, there would be no better place to make a splash than New York.
“It’s incredible,” she said of the US Open. “The best tournament in the world, for sure, especially for me.”
