Switzerland couldn\u2019t have asked for a much better start to its 2026 United Cup campaign than the one Belinda Bencic delivered Saturday in Perth.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old dropped the opening game against France\u2019s Leolia Jeanjean, but never trailed again, rolling to a 6-2, 6-4 win at RAC Arena in 1 hour and 31 minutes. The victory \u2014 sealed with a backhand winner down the line \u2014 gave Switzerland a 1-0 lead in its tie against France ahead of the upcoming men\u2019s singles match between Stan Wawrinka and Arthur Rinderknech.<\/p>\n
Bencic controlled the matchup from the outset in the pair\u2019s first meeting, dominating at the net, where she won 23 of 29 points, and reinforcing that edge with strong serving. She won 78 per cent of her first-serve points to stifle most of the pressure Jeanjean managed to generate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last game was tricky with the Australian sun,\u201d Bencic said after the match. \u201cI think this is really one of the only places \u2014 to play in Australia \u2014 where you get into this situation. So I should have done better somehow. So I\u2019m gonna find some solutions next time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bencic is coming off a resurgent 2025 season in which she was named WTA Comeback Player of the Year, climbing from World No. 421 in January to No. 11 in the year-end rankings in her first full season after maternity leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year, we didn\u2019t expect it to go so well,\u201d Bencic said. \u201cOf course, I don\u2019t think the work is done yet. I\u2019m extremely happy to receive the Comeback Player of the Year award, and now it\u2019s time to do more work and try to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Switzerland couldn\u2019t have asked for a much better start to its 2026 United Cup campaign than the one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-385135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}