Belinda Bencic wins Abu Dhabi, the biggest title a mom has won since 2020

The signs were there at the Australian Open that Belinda Bencic wasn’t taking her time trying to work her way back to the upper echelon of women’s tennis—in just her third tour-level event back from maternity leave, she made it all the way to the fourth round in Melbourne.

Well, in her fourth tour-level event back, she just won a title.

The Olympic gold medalist and former No. 4 won the WTA 500 event in Abu Dhabi on Saturday, storming back after dropping the first set to defeat American Ashlyn Krueger in the final, 4-6, 6-1, 6-1.

And with that, she did something very special: it’s the biggest title a mom has won since 2020, when Victoria Azarenka won the WTA 1000-level Cincinnati Open, which was held in New York that year.

In fact, Azarenka and Bencic’s titles are the two biggest titles moms have won in the last 14 years. You have to go all the way back to Kim Clijsters to find the last mom to win a title at the WTA 500 level or higher—she won six of them between 2009 and 2011 (plus a WTA 250).

MOMS TO WIN WTA TITLES SINCE 2009:

• Sybille Bammer (1): 2009 Prague [250]
• Kim Clijsters (7): 2009 US Open [Grand Slam], 2010 Brisbane [250], 2010 Miami [1000], 2010 Cincinnati [1000], 2010 US Open [Grand Slam], 2010 WTA Finals [WTA Finals], 2011 Australian Open [Grand Slam]
• Kateryna Volodko (1): 2017 Tashkent [250]
• Tatjana Maria (3): 2018 Mallorca [250], 2022 Bogota [250], 2023 Bogota [250]
• Serena Williams (1): 2020 Auckland [250]
• Victoria Azarenka (1): 2020 Cincinnati [1000]
• Patricia Maria Tig (1): 2020 Istanbul [250]
• Elina Svitolina (1): 2023 Strasbourg [250]
• Belinda Bencic (1): 2025 Abu Dhabi [500]

Having given birth to daughter Bella last April, Bencic played her first three tournaments back below tour-level at the end of last year, then made her tour-level comeback during the Australian swing in January, playing the United Cup, Adelaide and the Australian Open—in Melbourne, she made it all the way to the fourth round in her first Grand Slam event back before falling to Coco Gauff in three sets.

In Abu Dhabi, she took out former Top 10 players Veronika Kudermetova and Marketa Vondrousova en route to the semifinals, where she upset top-seeded Elena Rybakina, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, her victory over the No. 5-ranked Kazakh being her first Top 10 win as a mom.

She then polished her week off with the win over Krueger.

Having been unranked when she returned to action in late October, she had worked her way back up to No. 157 coming into Abu Dhabi, and she’s now projected to break back into the Top 100.