– Unrecognizable, Bencic leaves New York by the back door
The Saint-Galloise completely missed out on her round of 16 on Sunday, against Sorana Cirstea (3-6 3-6).
Published: 03.09.2023, 21:29Updated 5 hours ago
Belinda Bencic here during her US Open Round of 16 encounter against Sorana Cirstea.
Getty Images via AFP
It will be interesting to hear what she has to say at the press conference about her performance today. Did she catch a cold from the New York air conditioning? Was she the victim of indigestion or a physical glitch? Because Sunday afternoon, in the Louis Armstrong stadium, it was the ghost of Belinda Bencic and the fighter who had ended up sickening the Chinese blocker Lin Zhu in the previous round.
The black hole
There is a barometer to measure the degree of involvement of the 26-year-old Saint-Galloise in a match: her ability to complain. A perfectionist in the extreme, which can sometimes sublimate her like causing her loss, the Olympic champion was amorphous at the start of the match against Sorana Cirstea, a 30th player in the world against whom she had an unfavorable record so far (1-2) . After twenty minutes, the Romanian already had a double break in his pocket while “Beli” had no winning shot for ten unforced errors. Horrible.
Her black hole passed, the World No. 13 finally found the court a bit and experienced a surge of temporary pride, which gave the score of the 1st set a little less shameful. But from the first game of the second set, a spectator screamed during the exchange at 00-40 on the service of the Swiss. “What the hell are you doing…!” she blasted him with her gun eyes.
Cirstea, 14 years later
This match fact could have finally brought the 2019 semi-finalist at Flushing Meadows out of her torpor. But on the next game, Cirstea, who had knocked out Wimbledon winner Elena Rybakina on Friday, pulled away on the forehand defense and armed a service winner to save two break points and avoid raising her rival. Here she is in the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam, at 33, for the second time in her career only – after Roland-Garros 2009!
Stunned, Bencic left the arena with his bag on his back in fourth gear, with his 32 unforced errors in 1 hour 24. It really was not his day.
Jeremy Santallo has been a journalist at Sport-Center since 2018. A specialist in basketball and tennis, he has been to Roland-Garros four times and Wimbledon twice.More info@jeremy_santallo
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2023-09-03 19:29:21
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