{"id":5700,"date":"2026-01-12T13:29:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T13:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=5700"},"modified":"2026-01-12T13:29:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T13:29:04","slug":"belinda-bencic-swiss-player-returns-to-top-10-for-first-time-since-giving-birth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=5700","title":{"rendered":"Belinda Bencic: Swiss player returns to top 10 for first time since giving birth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When Bencic made her top 10 debut in 2016 &#8211; aged just 18 &#8211; she became the first teenager in the top 10 of the WTA singles rankings since Caroline Wozniacki in 2009.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It wasn&#8217;t until five years later, however, that she won her first big title, beating Marketa Vondrousova in the final of the Tokyo Olympics to claim the gold medal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A few WTA Tour-level titles followed in 2022 and 2023, but her pregnancy meant she missed out on defending her Olympic gold in Paris.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">By the time Bencic returned from her maternity break in October 2024, she had slipped to 1,213th in the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But less than four months later, Bencic was back to her best &#8211; reaching the fourth round of the Australian Open before winning the Abu Dhabi Open, which she celebrated with Bella in one arm and the trophy in the other.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A deep run at Wimbledon in July &#8211; ended in the semi-finals by eventual champion Iga Swiatek &#8211; lifted her back into the world&#8217;s top 20, and she clinched her second title of the year at October&#8217;s Pan Pacific Open.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">During Wimbledon, she said: &#8220;I see myself as a mum first, and then a tennis player. My priorities are clearly with my family.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Bencic made her top 10 debut in 2016 &#8211; aged just 18 &#8211; she became the first teenager in the top 10 of the WTA singles rankings since Caroline Wozniacki in 2009. It wasn&#8217;t until five years later, however, that she won her first big title, beating Marketa Vondrousova in the final of the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}