Stat of the Day: Belinda Bencic reaches first clay-court final in Charleston

Belinda Bencic has been to the finals of—and won—some of the biggest hard-court and grass-court tournaments on the WTA calendar. But in Charleston this week, she’s broken new ground: she's through to the first WTA final of her career on clay.

She defeated Ekaterina Alexandrova in the semifinals of the WTA 500 event on Saturday, 6-4, 6-3, to achieve the feat, and was all smiles afterwards.

“I didn’t think the moment would come, my first final on clay,” she said.

“I’m super happy it’s happening. I feel super comfortable here.”

Her best results on this surface before this were two semifinals, at Charleston in 2014 (falling to Jana Cepelova) and Madrid in 2019 (falling to Simona Halep).

She’ll play the 14th WTA final of her career in Charleston on Sunday.

BELINDA BENCIC’S CAREER WTA FINALS (14):
2014 Tianjin (hard) (runner-up)
2015 ’s-Hertogenbosch (grass) (runner-up)
2015 Eastbourne (grass) (won)
2015 Toronto (hard) (won)
2015 Tokyo (hard) (runner-up)
2016 St. Petersburg (hard) (runner-up)
2018 Luxembourg (hard) (runner-up)
2019 Dubai (hard) (won)
2019 Mallorca (grass) (runner-up)
2019 Moscow (hard) (won)
2021 Adelaide (hard) (runner-up)
2021 Berlin (grass) (runner-up)
2021 Olympics (hard) (won)
2022 Charleston (clay) (TBD)