Belinda Bencic is one of the mothers on the WTA Tour. She returned to the sport only last year, but she has already won a title this year.
Bencic announced her pregnancy in November 2023. She was 26 at the time, playing some of the best tennis of her career. That’s why some saw the decision as risky, but the Swiss player didn’t care about that. She wanted to start her own family.
Now, she’s already a mother to her daughter Bella, and she’s also a WTA 500 champion as a mother. Bencic won the Abu Dhabi Open shortly after her comeback, once again proving that leaving the sport to become a mother and returning is possible.
The 27-year-old Swiss player isn’t the only one who proved that. Serena Williams, Elina Svitolina, Tatjana Maria, and Naomi Osaka have all managed to do that.
Now, with her comeback fully underway and Bencic back in the Top 60 of the WTA Rankings, she was able to look back on how her decision was perceived previously.
Bencic talked to her colleague Caroline Garcia on the Tennis Insider Club podcast, admitting that many people doubted her when she made the decision to become a mother at 26.
“When I started my comeback, most people were like, ‘Oh, for sure, it’s not possible,’ you know? So, I always feel like people change their minds so quickly. And it’s fun for me to be like, ‘Oh, okay, you believe in me now, huh?'”
“It’s very classic. I had so many people saying: ‘Why she did this decision now in the middle of her career? It’s not possible to be back at the same level.’ But now (after Abu Dhabi) they say: ‘Yeah, she can win the Grand Slam for sure.’ I’m like, you changed your mind in one week!”
Despite others doubting her, Bencic never doubted the possibility of her comeback. She always believed that it was possible, and she proved herself right.
“I was really convinced that it’s possible to come back. And I was also happy to come back because I also feel like all the work I did in my career in my childhood, I don’t want to just throw it away and just want to take out the most when I can out of my career and, and also like see that it’s possible to have both.”
While she’s certainly happy about her success after returning to the tennis courts, becoming a mother also changed Bencic’s view on her career.
She now realizes that there’s a very important part of her life outside of the tennis courts, which is why she would be happy to end her career and spend all the time with her daughter if that would be needed.
“I don’t think it’s like proving myself. I think it’s just like doing the best I can for sure. Like the priorities. So, if anything happens, I’m very happy to stop playing tennis and be a full-time mom if that’s what I need to do. But I feel like now it’s possible to do both.”
“And thankfully, like I have the opportunity to do like with my husband traveling, with my mom traveling, with his mom traveling. So I really want to take use of that and try the best.”
