20-Year-Old Monica Puig on rise and preparing for Wimbledon

Puerto Rico is no stranger to having professional athletes on sport’s largest global stages. There have been over 200 professional baseball players hailing from the Caribbean territorial island. Going with that same note, there have been over 100 Puerto Ricans to put an NBA jersey.

Let’s shift to tennis.

There have only been four women from Puerto Rico ever to participate in a Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) sponsored event – and only one on the tour right now: Monica Puig.

If you haven’t heard of her, let this be your introduction.

She’s rising like a hot air balloon.

She had six ITF (International Tennis Federation) championships, but has finally added a WTA title to her belt, the Internationaux de Strasbourg. The tournament, which also takes place in France, is kind of like a pre-French Open warm up tournament; it also took place on clay.

I sat down with Monica to talk about her rise and where she sees herself going in the near future with grass-season approaching.  I mean, we are both 20/21 year olds on the go, it’s just that one of us will be participating in Wimbledon this month, and one of us will be watching.

Her first WTA title – which is kind of like the MLB to the ITF’s Triple-A ball, or the Nationwide Wide Series to the WTA’s Sprint Cup –  has boosted her world ranking to the highest it has ever been, No. 41. Oh, don’t let me forget to mention that it is not only Puig’s first WTA title, it’s the first WTA title for anyone from Puerto Rico, ever. But, enough of that, this is about Monica Puig, not an island.

“At the beginning of this year I set a goal to win a WTA title. I was very surprised with how soon it came, but it was so special to me. I was relieved to have won in Strasbourg,” Puig went on, “I was always so close and never came to push past a quarterfinal. When I reached the final, I knew it was finally my time to shine.”

The French Open followed Internationaux De Strasbourg, where some were picking Puig as a bit of a dark horse – with reason; she has a tendency of playing up to her competition. That said, was bounced by Australia’s Samantha Stosur, who was just the peak of the top-ranked player iceberg of which Puig has had to climb in the past few months. 

She’s also had to deal with Venus Williams, Sara Errani, and more recently, gave Maria Sharapova everything she wanted in Rome the tournament before Puig won in Strasbourg.

An interesting tid bit, the average age of those three players? 28 years old. Puig is just 20 years of age.

Eight years can make a massive difference in tennis; Puig is chasing down a more experienced field, quickly. Monica says that her mother put a racquet in her hand at a young age, but she did not realize she had actual talent until she was about 14. By that time, those previously mentioned players were already professionally touring – just something to keep in the back of your mind.

Puig talked about looking across the net at some of the Maria Sharapova’s of the tour, “These experiences have helped me feel confident against some of the big names on tour. It’s all about gaining experience and I know that I can definitely go toe to toe with the big guns on tour and win; it’s all about the experience and being confident.”

As the focus will now shift from clay to grass, the business for Puig will be in full swing.

Ironically enough, Monica says that one of her favorite songs right now (Head’s up y’all, I’m thinking about throwing like two cheesy country song title clichés out there to wrap this thing up…) is Luke Bryan’s “Play It Again,” but after this month she may not want to be playing tennis again until after a little vacation – or something.

Then again, that’s why she’s playing in Wimbledon and I’m writing about her, again.

Puig’s upcoming schedule is something as follows:  Nottingham this week, next week in Birmingham, Holland the following week, and then finishing the first half of the season at Wimbledon.

She seems excited about the upcoming challenges, and apparently 20 in not just Monica Puig’s age, but also her goal: “I’m ranked #41 at the moment, but I think the goal for me this year is reaching top 20 or higher.

“I know I cam definitely do it, I’m ready for the grass.”

She has all the reason in the world for confidence going into June. She has been in terrific form the past few months, and as you may remember, last year at Wimbledon, a 19-year-old Puig made noise by advancing to the 4th round, taking down Errani in her wake.

The bottom line is Puig is not going to be overpowered by anyone on the tour. If she’s moving around well, and getting her strong two-handed backhand involved, she’s hard to beat.

Don’t worry, I didn’t forget about the second country song. Wait for it….

If I were a high seed, I would be wary of running into Puig on the grass at Wimbledon come late June. A match up with her could lead to a direct trip to partake in the activities of Monica’s other favorite song: Jake Owen’s “Beachin.” She has the capability to send just about anyone on her best day.

My one promise to Monica when writing this piece for her was to make her “look good,” but to be honest, she doesn’t my help doing that. Her play can probably handle that just fine.