The 24-year-old reached the round of 16 in a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in Roland-Garros. For Belinda Bencic, on the other hand, the tournament ends once again in disappointment.
“Somehow crazy”: Jil Teichmann after her victory against Victoria Asarenka.
On the Friday of the first week of the Roland-Garros tournament, Swiss Tennis invites the Swiss media representatives in the Latin Quarter to an informal exchange of views. This time, Jil Teichmann was at the center of this gathering – even if she wasn’t present herself.
The 24-year-old is the only Swiss to remain in the main tournament at Roland-Garros. Teichmann won her third round match against Victoria Asarenka 4:6, 7:5, 7:6. For one and a half sentences she was lost against the former Grand Slam winner and world number one. The Belarusian already led in the second set with a break and later served in the third set for the match. But she was unable to seize any of these opportunities.
Azarenka is on her way back after a nerve-wracking custody battle. But her best days are behind her. They degraded noticeably as the game progressed. In the championship tie-break to ten points, which will also decide the deciding set in Paris this year, she had no chance.
Jil Teichman’s soaring doesn’t come out of nowhere
Teichmann then had a relatively simple recipe in the field interview, with which she found her way back into the match. Keep calm and keep playing. But she also said afterwards that it was somehow a little crazy to be in the fourth round in Paris.
However, their soaring does not come as a complete surprise. She looks back on an excellent clay court season. She reached the semi-finals in Madrid and had to retire the following week in Rome in the quarter-finals against Russian Daria Kasatkina due to adductor problems.
But that was probably more of a precautionary measure. Her right thigh is still bandaged, and in the match against Azarenka she had to have her foot treated. But physically she is obviously fit enough to endure a match like the one against the two-time Grand Slam winner for more than three hours.
Teichmann’s next opponent in Paris on Sunday is Sloane Stephens, the last Major winner left in the tournament. The American won the US Open in 2017, but like so many others, she was never able to confirm this success. At 29, she is still number 64 in the ranking. Teichmann and Stephens have never met on the WTA Tour.
This is mainly due to Teichmann, who, despite being 24 years old, still has a manageable sporting palmarès. Before Roland-Garros, she had never made it past the second round of a Grand Slam tournament. So far she has won two titles in Prague and Palermo.
Teichmann was born to Swiss parents in Barcelona and mostly grew up there. She is still trained today by Alberto Martin and Arantxa Parra Santonja, two Spaniards. Her physiotherapist is also Spanish.
Her parents let her try different sports before she turned to tennis. With her Spanish background, it’s not surprising that her best surface is clay. As number 24 in the WTA ranking, at the age of 24 she is better placed than ever before in her career. The round of 16 qualification will take them to the threshold of the top 20.
Belinda Bencic has to wait for the major breakthrough
But much seems possible for her in Paris. In the lower half of the tableau, to which she and Belinda Bencic were drawn, there is no longer a top ten player after just three rounds. The narrow defeat against Leyhla Fernandez (5:7, 6:3, 5:7) was all the more annoying for Bencic. In an interview with Swiss television, she was annoyed about the missed opportunities and said: “One wonders what else it takes for me to get ahead.”
At 25, Bencic is still waiting for her first Grand Slam title. The Olympic victory last summer in Tokyo was a liberation for her, but it did not fuel her career as hoped.
With a victory at the tournament in Charleston, she seemed to have reconciled herself to sand, the surface that suits her the least. Now this new love against Fernandez found at least a temporary end.
But Belinda Bencic doesn’t have much to blame herself for. On Friday she won only three points less (109:122) than her opponent. And the tournament basically only knows one top favorite anyway: the world number one Iga Swiatek. The Pole can now look back on a series of 30 victories in a row.