A “very beneficial” day for Belinda Bencic. This Tuesday, the 27-year-old Saint-Galloise reached the round of 16 of the Adelaide tournament – stamped WTA 500 – without having needed to draw on her resources but still having garnered a little competition in her legs . A dream scenario considering the opponent that presented itself to her: the Russian Anna Kalinskaya, 14th player in the world.
The latter threw in the towel at the start of the second set due to an injury, after 53 minutes of the match. Appearing diminished, it was then led 2-6, 0-1.
Bencic’s qualification should not, however, be simply summed up by this favorable circumstance. The Swiss, returned to the main circuit at the end of October after giving birth to her daughter Bella and now 421 in the WTA rankings, displayed a solid level of play one week before the Australian Open.
Her start to the match set the tone: she won the first nine points, giving her rival two shutouts who were broken from the start. Imperial on her serve (22 points gleaned out of 30), Bencic stole Kalinskaya’s throw-in a second time to lead 5-2, before pocketing the last game in the mind (three break points saved in the middle of 18 points !).
The second set started on the same basis as the first, so much so that the Russian preferred to give up. “That’s not how I wanted to win,” Bencic declared hotly, on the court, at the microphone of the organizers, wishing a speedy recovery to his opponent of the day.
Coming from the qualifications, where she successively dismissed the Japanese Moyuka Uchijima (63rd) and the German Laura Siegemund (79th), both times 6-2, 6-3, La Saint-Galloise gleans an eleventh victory in 14 confrontations (United Cup included) since his return to competition.
In the round of 16, she will challenge another Russian in the person of Liudmila Samsonova (26th).
