Belinda Bencic is certainly very happy about her start to the season as she jokingly expressed a desire to continue this trend of winning one title per month. On Sunday, Bencic saved three championship points in a 1-6 7-6 (8) 6-4 Abu Dhabi Open final win over Liudmila Samsonova.
At the start of the 2023 season, Bencic also won the Adelaide International 2 after beating Daria Kasatkina in the final. Bencic, who now has eight WTA titles, has never won more than two WTA titles in a single season. “It’s a title, one per month now, hopefully that (will) continue.
I’m just really grateful. It’s not like you’re looking at the title before the tournament; of course you want to win but you take it match by match. There are tough draws in every tournament you play. You can just do your best every week.
I feel like I’m improving a lot, and having this belief in me that I can win titles, and hopefully it’s going to be like that also with the big titles. I’m just trying to give myself a chance and work really hard for it,” Bencic told Arab News.
Bencic: I did well in not allowing myself to walk away mentally
After failing to serve out for the second set at 5-3, Bencic faced three consecutive break points at 5-5. Luckily for Bencic, she was able to save those three consecutive break points and force a tie-break.
In the tie-break, Bencic faced three championship points but saved them all. “I’m happy I stayed really tough with the head. Sometimes you can be like, ‘OK, it’s match point, I’m just going to get out of here, I’m losing, and just mentally walk away.
But I did well not to think that way. I felt like my team was pushing me to go for it, especially in the tiebreak,” Bencic said. This week, Bencic is playing at the Qatar Open in Doha, where she plays a qualifier in the first-round.
