Strength of women's game shown in Rio
The rise of Puig and fall of giants like Serena in Rio reflect the strength of the women's game
COMMENT
The tennis tournament at the Rio Olympics was amazing.
Tennis is so often thought of as an individual sport, but it is also such a global sport, and it's always good to see players compete together as a team representing their countries.
That is why the Olympics are always special.
This year, we saw Monica Puig (right) win Puerto Rico's first Olympic gold medal.
She had a fantastic run.
The 22-year-old beat this year's French Open winner Garbine Muguruza in the third round, two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova in the semi-finals and this year's Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber in the final.
It was so heartwarming to see the 2014 WTA Rising Star Invitational champion who played in Singapore, win the gold.
World No. 1 Serena Williams was also a talking point at the Olympics, after getting defeated in the second round by 21-year-old Ukranian Elina Svitolina.
Some saw it as a shock, but Elina has had some pretty strong results this year.
Against Serena, she held her own and played her own game.
I think the results at the Olympics reflect the great position women's tennis is in right now.
There is incredible depth at the moment.
Anyone can beat anyone on any given day.
This year, we've seen so many women players persevere, work hard and push themselves to achieve milestones for themselves.
Garbine won her first Grand Slam, Serena equalled Steffi Graf's record of 22 Grand Slams in the Open Era and now Monica has won an Olympics gold medal.
In fact, we've had three different Grand Slam winners in three tournaments this year, so I'm sure fans will be eager to see if there's a fourth at the US Open next month.You can't count Serena out, even after her defeat at the Olympics.
She's the current world No. 1 and she's always tough to beat.
MUCH AT STAKE
Having equalled Graf's record, she'll be out to better it and, being on home soil, I'm sure her fans will come out in full force to support her.
There's much at stake at the US Open.
It's the last Grand Slam to pick up points before the WTA Finals, which begins on Oct 23.
The Road to Singapore is definitely heating up now as we're down to the last few months.
There are 2,000 points up for grabs for the US Open winner, and 1,000 for the winner of the China Open in Beijing (from Oct 1 to 9), which is a WTA Premier Mandatory tournament.
So there are a lot of points at stake and everybody's vying for the points to move up the rankings.
There are a number of players who could make the jump into the top eight and earn a ticket to Singapore.
In ninth place is Johanna Konta from Great Britain who's had a excellent year.
There are some really experienced players like Svetlana Kuznetsova in 10th, Samantha Stosur in 11th, Venus Williams in 13th, so it's very close.
Our top eight look fantastic right now, but you certainly can't count out some of these players, and I'll be keeping a very keen eye on the action at the US Open.
- Canadian Melissa Pine is a former NCAA player and a columnist for The New Paper. She is the vice-president of WTA Asia-Pacific and also the tournament director of the WTA Finals. Held in Singapore from 2014 to 2018, the 10-day tennis extravaganza showcases the world's top-eight singles players and doubles teams competing for a grand prize of US$7 million ($9.6m). For more information on the event, visit www.wtafinals.com
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