After the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo were postponed until 2021, Monica Puig pulled out her gold medal from the 2016 Olympics in Rio and shared it with her followers.
Entering the 2016 Olympic tournament, the champion from London 2012, Serena Williams was the biggest favorite to win the gold again. The first-seeded American lost already in the 3rd round and that was still not the biggest surprise of the tournament. Monica Puig brought the biggest surprise of the whole Olympic tournament.
The Puerto Rican began her journey against Polona Hercog with a 6-3, 6-2 victory in an hour. In the second round, Puig started to her road to the title by defeating the seeded players. First was the 14th seeded Pavlyuchenkova who Puig defeated in 2 sets, again 6-3, 6-2.
The no. 3 at the tournament, Garbine Muguruza was the next to stand in the way of the later champion. However, the Spaniard did not manage to win more than 2 games in the match and Puig advanced after another dominant victory. Current world number 90 repeated the same result in the quarterfinals again. Puig defeated Siegemund 6-1, 6-1 and reached semifinals; losing just 14 games during the tournament.
In the semifinals, she faced a first difficult task - the 11th seeded Petra Kvitova. Monica was losing already 0-3 in the first set but came back to win it 6-4. She was down 0-3 also in the second, but this time there was no comeback from the Puerto Rican. However, she showed great tennis in the 3rd set again to ensure that she will have a medal from Rio.
The question was if it will be a gold or silver medal. There was only 1 more woman standing in the way of Monica Puig. The second-seeded Angelique Kerber. For the 6th at the tournament, Puig started the match with a victory in the first set. Similarly to her semifinal appearance, she lost the second set. However, she managed to win the third 6-1 to win the gold medal at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. That was certainly the best moment of her career, as she now shared a photo on her Instagram account with the medal and a caption saying: "The love of my life."
[embed]https://www.instagram.com/p/B-NLLAXF8yv/[/embed]
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