“I never thought I would be here,” said Belinda Bencic. The Swiss wasn’t even referring to her upcoming third-round match in Melbourne against four-time Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka on Friday evening in the John Cain Arena. The two will take part in the so-called twilight session at 5 p.m. local time: the slowly setting sun transforms the Australian summer sky into an orange-red-purple spectacle. Twilight Session means: prime broadcast time in Australia, but also an opportunity for Europeans to treat themselves to this tennis duel at seven in the morning. The amazing thing for Bencic is that she is in Australia at all: a little more than eight months after the birth of daughter Bella.
Belinda Bencic writes one of the feel-good stories of the Australian Open – alongside that of Eva Lys from Hamburg, who slipped into the main draw at short notice and also won her second game on Thursday. After defeating Frenchwoman Varvara Gracheva (6:2, 3:6, 6:4), Lys will now play against Jaqueline Cristian from Romania on Saturday for a place in the round of 16. Possible opponents then: either the five-time Grand Slam winner Iga Swiatek or Emma Raducanu, US Open winner in 2021. “I now have the nickname here Lucky LysI actually think that’s great,” says Lys, 22, who is in the third round of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in her career: “This attitude of having nothing to lose is of course great – but at some point that’s the case then no more luck. I have a really great opportunity here and I want to take advantage of it.”
After her forced break, Bencic wasn’t so much concerned with technique, tactics or physicality – but with routine and a feel for the ball
Taking advantage of opportunities is what Belinda Bencic is all about. She had recently defeated Anna Kalinskaja, number 14 in the world rankings, in Adelaide and prevailed against number 16 seed Jelena Ostapenko in the first round in Melbourne. “I was already in good spirits that I would find my way back to my old strength and maybe even be better,” she says. “But I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly.” She has been familiar with breaks since she fought back in 2017 after wrist surgery, worked her way up to fourth place in the world rankings and celebrated the greatest success of her career to date with the 2021 Olympic victory in Tokyo.
After the break, it wasn’t so much about technique, tactics or physicality, but more about routine, she said. So it’s about the feel for the ball, which you only gain when it has flown towards you thousands of times. “You only get that through a lot of repetitions in training and games,” and that’s why she’s surprised at how comfortable she feels again after the pregnancy, especially since the physical aspect was added: “It goes from 100 percent to zero. And then they say it would take nine months until you’re in top shape again. It’s amazing how the body works.”
The game against Naomi Osaka is now being stylized as a duel between mothers. That’s okay, says Osaka, who also reported that a neighbor saved daughter Shai’s birth certificate from her home in Los Angeles from the devastating fires. She hasn’t met Bencic in person in Melbourne yet and thinks it’s “really cool that she also had a child and is back. She seems to be doing really well, so it should be a great match.” But she doesn’t want to be labeled as a tennis mother: “When we come onto the court, we see ourselves first and foremost as tennis professionals.”
What can we expect in terms of sport from this duel? Osaka, 27, did not bounce back quite as quickly as Bencic after giving birth in July 2023. Last season she didn’t reach the semi-finals of any tournament and didn’t even reach the third round of the Grand Slam competitions. Since September she has been working with coach Patrick Mouratoglou, who advised her to play the tournament in Auckland before the Australian Open. “I’m very grateful for that,” she says. Even though she had to retire in the final in Auckland due to an abdominal muscle injury, the five games in New Zealand helped her to now play over three sets against Caroline Garcia from France and Karolina Muchova from the Czech Republic. “The rhythm was there, the belief in myself.”
That’s her superpower: this calm self-confidence, being able to compete against any player in the world and being able to dominate these games. She thrashes serves over the net at more than 180 km/h and determines rallies with her powerful forehand. As she herself says, Bencic’s two great strengths in Melbourne are her reaction when returning and her ability to return powerful shots from her opponents and thereby provoke mistakes; Ostapenko made an incredible 72 errors, and Bencic only needed twelve of his own winning strokes to win. “It will be a great match because we can be tennis professionals,” says Osaka, who also has her daughter with her in Melbourne.
The Australian Open offers young parents exceptionally good childcare conditions
Due to her world ranking position before birth (rank 15), Bencic not only received the right to start, but also the guarantee that she would not face any seeds in the first round. Melbourne offers professional tennis players on-site childcare, not just during games or training sessions, but all day long; as well as medical staff who are specially trained to meet the needs of young parents. And there are personalized nutrition and fitness plans for each player during pregnancy and postpartum.
Of course, more and more would be possible, for example financial help for tennis mothers who are not blessed with lucrative sponsorship contracts like Osaka or Bencic. That’s why both continue to talk not only about being tennis professionals, but also about family needs. The big goal, of course, is to further improve the conditions so that a woman like Bencic becomes a mother and comes back as a matter of course during her career. The fact that such a duel between two mothers is one thing above all: completely normal.
#Mothers #among #Belinda #Bencic #Naomi #Osaka #Australian #Open
