Belinda Bencic reveals she feared that she may have a hard time adjusting to the current pace of tennis but those concerns are already a thing of the past.
When the 27-year-old kicked off her post-pregnancy comeback in late October, she was playing her first match since 2023 September.
While the nine-time WTA champion was sidelined, she was watching tennis on TV and seeing the game became even faster.
But it wasn’t anything that Bencic didn’t manage to quickly figure out.
After finishing as runner-up at the WTA 125 tournament in Angers in December, the former world No. 4 is 10-3 to start 2025 and has made her first WTA semifinal as a mother after beating 2023 Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova 7-5 6-3 in Abu Dhabi.
Belinda Bencic© X screenshot
Bencic: I was really worried that the speed would be too much for me early
“I was really worried that the speed of the ball and the speed of how the girls are serving now, and returning and everything, would be maybe a bit too much, or a little bit too early for me,” the current world No. 157 said in her on-court interview.
“But I’m also someone that plays fast, and I’m happy to see it’s not such a big difference. The most I saw is that I have to work physically very hard.”
In January, Bencic reached the Adelaide International round-of-16 as a qualifier and she also made the second week at the Australian Open before losing to Coco Gauff in a tight three-set round-of-16 battle.
Now, she is in the midst of a great Abu Dhabi run and two wins away from landing her first title as a mother.
For a place in the Abu Dhabi final, the Swiss will play against either Elena Rybakina or Ons Jabeur.
Before her pregnancy, Bencic won Abu Dhabi in her debut in 2023.
With the way she has been playing this week, making it all the way in the United Arab Emirates again is definitely an option.
Tennis World USA