Belinda Bencic makes emotional return to Wimbledon semifinals after maternity break, joins Iga Swiatek in last four with hard-fought win over Mirra Andreeva

Back on tour just months after giving birth, Belinda Bencic continued her remarkable comeback story by booking a spot in the Wimbledon 2025 semifinals, a feat she hadn’t achieved at a Grand Slam in nearly six years. The 28-year-old Swiss showed nerves of steel on July 9 as she battled past rising Russian teenager Mirra Andreeva in two tight tiebreak sets, winning 7-6(3), 7-6(2) in a thrilling quarterfinal showdown on Court 1.

It took Bencic 2 hours and 7 minutes to clinch her 38th career win over a Top 10 opponent and just her second ever at Wimbledon. Despite the high stakes and facing one of the brightest young stars in the game, she held firm throughout, dropping serve only once and even that came as she was trying to close out the match at 5-4 in the second set.

This win marks Bencic’s second outing in a Grand Slam semifinal, her first coming nearly six years ago at the 2019 US Open, where she lost to Bianca Andreescu. 

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Bencic's first major semifinal -- a loss to Bianca Andreescu at the 2019 US Open -- came five years and 309 days ago, making her run to the last four at The Championships the fifth-longest gap between Grand Slam semifinals in the Open Era.

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It was a masterclass in executing a game plan. Bencic does not have a big serve, but she put her largely slice delivery beautifully into the corners, keeping it very low and therefore out of the strike zone of her teenage opponent.

Then, using her unorthodox groundstrokes (open stance and stepping through shots), Bencic backed up her precise serve. The Swiss won 73 per cent of first serve points as she reached the Wimbledon semi-finals for the first time.

Earlier in the day, Iga Swiatek’s long-anticipated grass-court breakthrough finally arrived on Wednesday as the No. 8 seed powered past Liudmila Samsonova 6-2, 7-5 to book her place in the semifinals for the first time in her career.

Playing on No. 1 Court, the five-time Grand Slam champion produced a commanding display against Samsonova, a first-time major quarterfinalist. Swiatek took 1 hour and 49 minutes to seal her fifth straight victory over the 19th-seeded Russian, extending her unbeaten head-to-head record to 5-0 as per WTA.
 

With agency inputs