Belinda Bencic won Switzerland's third Olympic gold, while Team USA’s Caeleb Dressel has won his third gold medal in the Tokyo Games.
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No.9 seed Belinda Bencic survived a thriller against unseeded Marketa Vondrousova to won Switzerland’s third Olympic tennis gold medal. The final score of the end-to-end match read 7-5, 2-6, 6-3 as Bencic prevailed in two hours and 30 minutes. Previously, Marc Rosset took gold in men’s singles at Barcelona 1992 and Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka teamed up to win men’s doubles at Beijing 2008. Besides, Federer clinched the men’s singles silver medal at London 2012, while Timea Bacsinszky and Martina Hingis captured silver in women’s doubles at Rio 2016.
Bencic now has the chance to clinch two Olympic golds as the Swiss player prepares to compete alongside Viktorija Golubic in the women’s doubles final on Sunday. Meanwhile, Ukraine has its first Olympic tennis medal after World No.6 Elina Svitolina fought back from a huge deficit to defeat No.20 Elena Rybakina for the bronze medal. The World No.6 came back from 1-4 down in the final set to defeat Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina 1-6, 7-6, 6-4.
“Coming here, for sure my goal was to win a gold medal, and it was extremely tough to lose in the semi-finals and then try to regroup and come again against a top player who is playing really good,” Svitolina said, as reported by the ITF Website. “To win such a big battle for the bronze medal definitely means the world to me. Everyone in Ukraine is watching – we don’t win so many medals, you know – so for sure, it’s very special for me and for Ukraine.”
Swiss dreams are made of gold ?@BelindaBencic defeats Marketa Vondrousova 7-5 2-6 6-3 to earn #SUI a third gold medal in tennis after Marc Rosset at Barcelona 1992 and Federer/Wawrinka at Beijing 2008!#Tokyo2020 | #Tennis | #Olympics pic.twitter.com/QzwSKdI4Ms
— ITF (@ITFTennis) July 31, 2021
World No.1 Novak Djokovic leaves Tokyo empty-handed after withdrawing from the bronze-medal mixed doubles match. On Saturday, the Serbian tennis player was defeated by Spain’s Pablo Carreno Busta in the bronze-medal singles match. Following the defeat, Djokovic withdrew from the mixed doubles bronze-medal match with partner Nina Stojanovic citing a shoulder injury, handing the medal to Ash Barty and John Peers of Australia.
In a dominant display, Team USA’s Caeleb Dressel swam to the 100m butterfly gold in some style on Saturday. The 24-year-old American won in a world record time of 49.45. Since there were no Rio medallists in the final it meant that there would be a new 100m butterfly Olympic champion.
The battle for gold was expected to be between the in-form American swimmer and Hungary’s Kristof Milak. Dressel started the race with the fastest reaction time and finished the final 0.23 seconds ahead of Milak to win his third gold of the Tokyo Games. Milak clinched the silver in 49.68 seconds.
“I am smiling finally. It was hard, but I had a good race against such noble rivals,” the Hungarian swimmer was quoted as saying by Olympics.com. “This is a fair result. That was the maximum I could give. I am happy that Caeleb [Dressel] needed a world record to beat me.”
Mikel Oyarzabal helped Spain reach the semifinal, while Brazil remained on track to retain its 2016 gold medal. The Spanish side were provided a stern challenge by Ivory Coast with the match going to extra time before winning it 5-2 on Saturday. The crucial goal in the match was scored by Oyarzabal, who also netted the winning penalty in the Euro 2020 quarterfinals. However, Spain lost the last-four match to eventual winners Italy earlier this month.
The youthful Spain squad will be looking to reach the final this time around when they face host Japan, which survived a penalty shootout against New Zealand.
Brazil, gold medallist on home soil in 2016, registered a narrow 1-0 victory over Egypt, which was secured by Matheus Cunha’s low strike in the 37th minute. Brazil will next take on Mexico, which ousted South Korea 6-3.
