PERTH, Australia — Belinda Bencic put Switzerland in prime position to secure their spot in the United Cup quarterfinals with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Italy\u2019s Jasmine Paolini to take a 1-0 lead in the tie.<\/p>\n
Stan Wawrinka, who won a three-hour thriller over France\u2019s Arthur Rinderknech Saturday, can guarantee a first-place finish in Group C for the Swiss with a victory over Flavio Cobolli in men\u2019s singles. If Cobolli levels the tie, mixed doubles will be the deciding factor.<\/p>\n
In the first set, Bencic and Paolini traded five straight breaks, highlighted by a Bencic backhand, crosscourt return that glided past the Italian in the fifth game. Bencic provided the game\u2019s first hold and extended her lead to 4-2 against the World No. 8, who Bencic lost two twice in 2025 — in a three-set thriller in Ningbo and at last year’s United Cup group stage.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m really happy with today\u2019s match,” Bencic said on-court after the 1-hour and 53-minute match. \u201cI lost to her really close at the end of last season. I really had to organize my mind that \u2018now it\u2019s my time, I can do it.\u2019 I thought it was a bit mental today.”<\/p>\n
Paolini recovered quickly and held her serve, coming back from triple break point, and then broke Bencic once more, leveling at 4-4.<\/p>\n
Just as Paolini was building momentum, Bencic, No. 11 on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz, halted it. She broke Paolini with an on-the-run backhand pass down the line, one of 10 backhand winners on the evening. The World No. 11 then held her serve and took the set 6-4.<\/p>\n
Despite holding her serve to start the second set, Paolini dropped three of the next four games. She held her serve, requiring seven games points in the deuce as Bencic was a tall task, to remain a break down at 4-3. Bencic closed the match once more with her sixth break of Paolini\u2019s serve, and propelled Switzerland to a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Bencic is now 2-0 in singles, following her 6-2, 6-4 win over Leolia Jeanjean Saturday. Paolini will face Jeanjean in Italy\u2019s next tie against France.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More to come<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PERTH, Australia — Belinda Bencic put Switzerland in prime position to secure their spot in the United Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,1602,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-351747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}