The clock has struck twelve for Monica Puig…
The 19-year-old Puerto Rican tennis player’s Cinderella run at Wimbledon came to an end at the hands of another young tennis star.
Sloane Stephens, the last American singles player still in the hunt at the All England Club, advanced to the quarterfinals on Monday by beating Puig 4-6, 7-5, 6-1.
It was a hard-fought 2-hour, 4-minute match on Court 18.
“Just knowing that I am a good tennis player. I’m top-20 in the world for a reason. I didn’t, like, all of a sudden, snap my fingers and I got good,” Stephens said. “I put in a lot of work. (It) took a lot of sweat (and), like, ‘bad hair’ days, all that other stuff, to get to where I was. I realize that I just couldn’t let that go to waste. I had to get back to work.”
Despite the loss, Puig still has plenty of reason to be proud.
Competing at Wimbledon for the first time in her professional career, she pulled off an upset win over No. 5 seed Sara Errani in the first round. She then beat Spain’s Silvia Soler Espinosa in the second round and Eva Birnerova in the third round.
Puig, the first woman in the Open era to represent Puerto Rico in the fourth round, surpassed her best performance in a Grand Slam at the All England Club. She’d previously reached the third round at this year’s French Open.
