Olympic champion Belinda Bencic survives in Chicago

Bencic arrived in Chicago in shaky form having had lacklustre showings in Ostrava and Luxembourg. The Swiss player needed 3 sets in the previous round to win her match and while today she was able to keep it in 3 it was hard-fought. The start was really good for Bencic who quickly took a 5-1 lead dominating from the baseline.

Martincova is a superb athlete able to cover the court really well however Bencic was simply too good at the start. She dropped only 3 points after her first serve as Martincova failed to win the key rallies that she needed to win. That changed in the 2nd set and we had a much closer affair where Martincova had decent chances.

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In the first four games, we saw 4 breaks of serve with neither player able to take advantage of some poor serving by both. After that, we saw 4 easy holds with both players finding a good rhythm. At 4-4, Bencic had a huge chance to seal the deal with several break points however Martincova held. A couple of games later she had 0-40 on return which were set points but Bencic brilliantly held.

We ended up in the tiebreak and it was a very good one with both players showing some great tennis. In the end, it was the more experience Bencic who won it with 7-5 closing it out with a mini-break. A good match by Bencic who is slowly finding some of the form she displayed in Tokyo.