When the world thinks of Swiss tennis players, a guy by the name of Roger Federer comes to mind.
But another Swiss star started shining this summer—world No. 12 Belinda Bencic, who took home two medals from the Tokyo Olympics, a gold for her singles title and a silver for her women’s doubles play, with countrywoman Viktorija Golubic.
“Relaxed” is the word Bencic uses to describe her post-Olympics mood. “I can play freely now,” says the 24-year-old native of Flawil, Switzerland. “I don’t have to prove anything to anybody.”
That she’s brought both a new attitude and her career-best play to Flushing Meadows bodes well for Switzerland’s top-ranked female player. After all, the US Open is where Bencic has achieved her best Grand Slam results. In 2019, she beat defending champion and world No. 1 Naomi Osaka in the fourth round before advancing to semifinal play—the first Swiss woman to do so in 20 years. Bencic lost that match, but to Bianca Andreescu, who would go on to win the women’s singles title that year.
Throw it back to the 2014 US Open and the 17-year-old Bencic was already crushing it, defeating World No. 7 Angelique Kerber in the third round and Jelena Jankovic in the fourth to reach the quarterfinals in her tournament debut.
If New York is a charm for the gold medalist, it’s been working its magic at the 2021 US Open. Getting to the Round of 16, Bencic had yet to drop a set in singles, and she also reached the second round in mixed doubles with partner Filip Polasek.
“I feel like I am playing well,” said Bencic with characteristic humility. “I am lucky.”
Bencic has also called it “lucky” that she makes Switzerland her home, a country where it was “easy” to get early training. She was just two when she started playing tennis with her father, Ivan Bencic, the one-time professional hockey player who is now her coach. At four, she started training at a school run by Melanie Molitor, Martina Hingis’ mother. By the age of 16, she was the No. 1 junior in the world and—that same year, in 2013—she took the singles titles at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon. The only other junior girl to achieve that feat was Hingis in 1994.
Indeed, the Hingis name comes up often in the Bencic biography—as a family friend, an idol, and a mentor. So here’s another could-be connection: if Bencic goes the distance this year, she’ll be the first Swiss woman to win the US Open women’s singles title since—you guessed it—Hingis won it 1997.
