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Monica Puig was already in the midst of a career-best season even before she hopped on a play to Rio de Janiero for the 2016 Olympic tennis event. A little over a year ago she fell outside the Top 100 and was struggling to win matches. This year she’s already back to to No.35, notching more match wins in 2016 than she had in her two previous seasons combined.

Despite her quiet rise through the rankings and improved strength and power, few would have tapped the 22-year-old for Olympic glory. But there she was on Saturday at the top of the podium in tears, flanked by two major champions whom she vanquished en route – she also beat a third in Garbiñe Muguruza – with Olympic gold dangling from her neck.

Puig made history for Puerto Rico in Rio. Not only did she become the first woman to ever win a medal for Puerto Rico, but she also won Puerto Rico’s first gold medal in its Olympic history.

WTA Insider caught with Puig on Monday after her life-changing win:

WTA Insider: Olympic Gold Medalist Monica Puig. How are you?
Puig: I don’t think that “Olympic Gold Medalist” I actually believe it because I keep repeating it to myself over and over again and I still can’t really believe what happened this past week.

WTA Insider: What went through your mind on match point?
Puig: Well I think it was pretty much everybody could see that I was just saying ‘Oh my God’ over and over, especially after such a tough match like it was. I extended my lead in the third set and she just started swinging away. I was like, I have to be really careful here because she has nothing to lose. I really had to be careful. She saved a couple of my match points and on that final one I just couldn’t really believe it was actually over.

WTA Insider: Did you actually allow yourself to think about the gold medal at all?
Puig: I told myself going into the match to just enjoy the moment. But I think after the first set I think I started to really come to grips about what was going to happen and maybe got a little bit carried away in the second set. In the third I just tried to keep myself as focused as possible. But when you go up 5-0 in the third set there’s no way in avoiding all the emotion that starts to come to the surface. Just trying to keep it down a little bit longer and then finally when you win it, it was everything that I hoped for and more.

WTA Insider: You were very contained with your emotions all week in Rio. The only time you really let some emotions out was when you went up 5-0 in the third in the final. Was this a conscious thing all week?
Puig: Yeah, I’ve been trying to work on it a little bit. Trying to stay really focused in my routines. Trying to be more mentally even throughout the matches.

I did a really good job of it in Florianopolis leading up to the Olympics and carrying it on through and just letting out the emotions when I really, really needed it and it’s been working. But there, when I went up 5-0 I just fired myself up because it just helped numb the nerves a little bit more so it was good.

WTA Insider: How do you put your 2016 into context? It’s been a fantastic season for you, even before Rio. This has been a career season. But when people ask you, ‘Monica, how did you do this,’ what do you say?
Puig: I told everybody that I was going to be really patient with myself this year. Obviously coming off a very disappointing 2015 season, trying to take it one tournament at a time even though it hasn’t been easy. I’ve had my let downs, I’ve had my weeks where I felt absolutely terrible.

But just trying to be as patient as possible because I knew that I was putting in the hard work and that something good was going to come out of it. I think coming slowly up the rankings very quietly, nobody has really talked about me until now. It just shows that I was ready for this moment and I think it was my time to shine and finally let the world know who I was.

WTA Insider: Is Olympic Monica different from Tour Monica? Do you think you can match that intensity outside of the Olympic setting?
Puig: Yeah, I think I can because in reality at the Olympics, whenever I stepped on court I was still competing, doing my job. The only difference was it was for an Olympic medal and I was staying at the Athlete’s Village. That was the only difference but my job didn’t change at any time. I know the tennis that I’m capable of playing. It was just a matter of time for me to believe it myself.

I know there will be weeks where I’ll lose in the first round and there’ll be weeks when I win couple of more rounds or get to the final or win, but there’s one thing that nobody can take away from me and that’s the Olympic title.

WTA Insider: Puerto Rico is going nuts. How does it feel to make history for Puerto Rico, to become the first woman to win an Olympic medal, the first athlete to bring home the gold?
Puig: I don’t think I’ve been able to process it very well just yet. I’m just really overwhelmed by the attention that I’m getting and all the well wishes and everything. It’s just incredible. I will be going back to Puerto Rico to celebrate it with them.

WTA Insider: That’s going to be an epic parade.
Puig: It’s going to be unbelievable! I want to take the time to enjoy this moment and embrace it all because you only compete in your first Olympics and win your first gold medal once. So I have to wait another four years to play the Olympics.

This, to me, is even more special than a Grand Slam because it’s so rare to have an Olympic gold medal. It comes once every four years. I know I will have several opportunities to win a Grand Slam, but this is one that doesn’t come four times a year. It just comes once. For me to grab it so early, it was a dream come true.

WTA Insider: You’ve always been very vocal bout your Puerto Rican pride. How does that shape you as a person?
Puig: I’m just so proud of where I come from. Every time I land in Puerto Rico I get tears in my eyes every single time because it’s so beautiful and I can’t believe that I was born in such an amazing island. Even though I wasn’t raised full time there I still went back to visit and spend some time with my family members there and get really surrounded by the culture that Puerto Rico has to offer. I’m just so proud of where I come from.

I’m never going to lose that spirit of being Puerto Rican. I’m going to represent them until the day I finish tennis and so on and so forth.

WTA Insider: Taking your week in Rio outside of the Olympic context, it was an incredible week. You beat the reigning Australian Open champion, the reigning French Open champion, and a two-time Wimbledon champion. Setting the Olympics aside, what does this mean for your individual tennis career?
Puig: I think I can say that I’m amongst the best out there. It’s not so much a matter of ‘if’ it was going to happen but ‘when.’

I’m just going to try and not put any pressure on myself to back this up in any way because I know what I did and I know that I’m extremely young. I still have a really long career ahead of me and there’s no rush to get anywhere.

I’m just going to enjoy the ride right now and work as hard as I can to come out to the US Open and continue to represent Puerto Rico and myself in the same graceful manner that I did at the Olympics. I know that more good things are going to come for me during my career, but there’s no rush for anything.

Hear more from Puig in the latest Dropshot Episode of the WTA Insider Podcast:

All photos courtesy of Getty Images.

January was packed with plenty of amazing shots – we narrowed it down to the five best.

In the end it was Caroline Wozniacki, who played a stupendous rally against Danka Kovinic at the ASB Classic. Restarting the point with an out-of-nowhere pick-up lob, the Dane showed off all her spee and anticipation when Kovinic tried a drop shot – taking home this month’s top votes.

Click here to watch all of January’s finalists.

Final Results for January’s WTA Shot Of The Month

1. Caroline Wozniacki (42%)
2. Simona Halep (28%)
3. Eugenie Bouchard (16%)
4. Svetlana Kuznetsova (8%)
5. Victoria Azarenka (6%)

2015 WTA Shot of the Month Winners

Shot of the Year: Agnieszka Radwanska
October: Agnieszka Radwanska
September: Agnieszka Radwanska
August: Simona Halep
June: Ana Ivanovic
May: Agnieszka Radwanska
April: Angelique Kerber
March: Agnieszka Radwanska
February: Simona Halep
January: Maria Sharapova

How it works:

Five shots are selected by wtatennis.com
Winner is then determined by a fan vote on wtatennis.com 

INDIAN WELLS, CA, USA – Kayla Day has a beaming smile, one of those smiles which lights up a face, and while this week in the desert has given her plenty to smile about, it seems that she’s the kind of person who doesn’t need many excuses to crack out a grin.

When asked to describe herself in one word she chooses “hilarious”. The 17-year-old admits to being “pretty funny, I’m serious sometimes but I like to crack jokes a lot and laugh.” She clearly enjoys life and with the kind of impressive talent that saw her take out No. 32 seed Mirjana Lucic-Baroni on her way to the third round at the BNP Paribas Open, there is plenty to be happy about.

The California native first picked up a racket at the age of seven after watching her mom play in a women’s interclub match. She thought tennis looked ‘fun’ and subsequently signed up for a week’s tennis camp, loving it so much she ended up playing ‘every day all summer’ before locking in to regular lessons in her hometown of Santa Barbara.

A few years later she started making the four-hour round trip to Carson twice a week with her mom and she still trains there today under the watchful eye of Henner Nehles.

“My dream was always to be a professional but I really started thinking about it when I was 15,” said Day, who won the first Grand Slam match she played when she defeated Madison Brengle at last year’s US Open. That victory set up a second round meeting with Madison Keys on Louis Armstrong Stadium.

“It was such a good experience. I mean, I got two matches,” said the lefthander. “I got to play one of the great American players right now, Madison Keys. And I got to play on such a big court, and that was the first time I had ever been on such a big court.”

It was quite a fortnight for Day who claimed her first Junior Grand Slam title at the same event and also finished as runner-up in the girls’ doubles competition with Caroline Dolehide. Her junior successes ensured she ascended to World No. 1 in the junior rankings – a position she hopes to hold one day in the senior ranks, although she is having to practice the art of patience in the pursuit of her career dreams.

“I want my results to come, like, now. I want everything to be as fast as possible,” she admitted. “I think my coach is really good about telling me, like, focus on the process and improving and the results will come.”

Day is bubbly and confident and seems to be taking her success in her stride. She certainly doesn’t struggle for motivation either, divulging she was almost too psyched for her meeting with Lucic-Baroni.

“Before a match I either go Maroon 5 mellow or really pump out Kanye West or Jay Z,” she revealed. “Before I got in the car [to go to the courts] I was all pumped up and then I got in the car and I was like, man, I’m a little too pumped up, maybe I should mellow it down so I went Maroon 5 right before I went out there.”

As well as enjoying music, Day is a big fan of Stephen King novels and Netflix series like Grey’s Anatomy and The Vampire Diaries. Her non-tennis talents include speaking fluent Czech, thanks to her mom who was born and raised in the Czech Republic, and making a good butternut squash soup.

– Photos courtesy of Getty Images