Puerto Rican tennis player Monica Puig
The Puerto Rican tennis player Monica Puig is making Olympic history.
When it comes to the Olympics, many players are on extreme stressful envariment, and ranking points or prize crowds such as
Monica Puig falls into the latter category.
The 22-year-old Puerto Rican couldn’t stop beaming when asked about the Rio Games last month at the Citi Open.
“I’m really excited. It’s always been a dream of mine to compete at the Olympics and for it to come so soon in my career is a surreal feeling, I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she told Excelle Sports. “I get goosebumps just thinking about it.” said to the sources.
The Round of 16 in Rio, after straight-set wins over Slovakian Polona Hercog and Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the No. 14 seed. Puerto Rican tennis player has ever made it this far in the Olympics. Her powerful forehand and fantastic defense has kept her in complete control of both her matches, and Tuesday she’ll have a chance to upset French Open champion Garbine Muguruza for a spot in the quarterfinals.
It athletes seem to have no desire to be representing the stars and stripes in Rio.
The small team of 40 athletes in 15 different sports is incredibly tight-knit—like family, Puig said. Throughout the year, they all keep up with one another through social media and texting, and they support one another’s athletic careers from afar.
No distance between athletes “We’re all friends. It’s so nice, I know everyone going, and we’re going to have lunches together, dinners together, slumber parties with the girls. It’s going to be a lot of fun,” she said. “We get along so well, we’re always teasing each other, doing pranks.”
At the end of 2013, she was ranked in the top 50. By the end of 2015, she was barely ranked in the top 100.
But, with Rio the most consistent year of her career, Puig has reached a new career-high ranking of No. 33 in the world. She’s on the brink of getting seeded at Slams and challenging for titles on a weekly basis.
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