U.S. Open a chance for Monica Puig to prove Olympic gold was no fluke
NEW YORK – The night after Monica Puig won her Olympic gold medal in Rio, she kept waking up to look at it on her bedside table: She had to make sure that it was actually real.
“It’s still kind of a dream to me,” the 22-year-old Puerto Rican told reporters Saturday ahead of the U.S. Open. “It’s like, ‘Did this really just happen?’ I don’t think it has really hit me.”
Puig’s story was the most astounding of not only the tennis event, but perhaps the entire Olympics. Ranked No. 34 in the world, she shocked Grand Slam champions Garbiñe Muguruza, Petra Kvitova and Angelique Kerber en route to gold, which was just her second tournament title as a pro.
She became the first female from her country to win a medal at the Olympics, and first athlete – man or woman – to come home to Puerto Rico with a gold medal around her neck. She was greeted in San Juan by packs of fans at the airport, then a literal hero’s parade.
“That’s where the party was waiting,” Puig said. “It was amazing.”
Amazing barely begins to describe what Puig achieved, which set off a cascade of social media responses, including from Puerto Rican pop star Ricky Martin, “Hamilton” writer and star Lin-Manuel Miranda and Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig, of Cuba.
“It’s more of the messages I got from Latin America and my island that means the most,” Puig said. “They care. Those messages mean a lot to me. I read all of them.”
Puig has also read the messages that called her run a “fluke,” which also purport that she’ll crash out of the U.S. Open in the first round, where the faces 60th-ranked Zheng Saisai of China. They have never played before.
Puig was unseeded coming into the Open before American Sloane Stephens pulled out of the event Friday with a foot injury. She now occupies the last seeded spot, No. 32.
“I’m trying to keep myself as focused as possible and not let all the attention get to me,” she said. “I have to keep my mind centered. It isn’t ideal coming into a Grand Slam … trying to find time to sleep, time to myself and get my practices in.”
“I never come to a tournament if I’m not prepared,” she added. “If I’m here, I’m ready to go.”
Life changed by the Olympics, Puig understands that she will still have her ups and downs. Having reached the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2013, she was ranked as high as No. 48 in the world last season at one point, only to have a slew of bad results drop her to No. 92 by year’s end.
Puig said she fell into a pattern of focusing on results rather than the process, and after a run to the Sydney final – the biggest of her career at that point – she felt back on track. Her No. 33 ranking last month was the highest of her career.
Saturday, in an appearance at the U.S. Open’s Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day, Puig began firing balls up to fans in the crowd after hitting alongside Venus Williams, Juan Martin Del Potro and American Steve Johnson. The gold medal around her neck was bouncing too much, however, so she grabbed it and set it down gingerly – on the ground.
That gold medal and her have been mostly inseparable the last two weeks, however.
“I keep saying to myself, ‘You’re an Olympic gold medalist,’” she said. “But I think I have to wait until the off-season to think about it a little more. Then it will sink in.”
