Batunkova’s GS Upset: 77x Prize Money Win

There was also the first top 10 elimination in the women’s singles. Surprisingly, Belinda Bencic (Switzerland, 10th place), who was the MVP of the last United Cup and seemed to be in the best condition at the beginning of the season, was eliminated first. The player who took the bench was Nikola Batunkova (126th), 19 years old from the Czech Republic. Batunkova and Bencic’s cumulative prize money is approximately 77 times.

Batunkova defeated Benchic 6-3 0-6 6-4 in the second round of the women’s singles held at the ANZ Arena in Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia on the 22nd.

The prediction before the game was that Benchic would win by a landslide. Bencic won 5 matches in the last United Cup. At this time, the players Bencic defeated included top 10 players such as Jasmine Paolini (Italy) and Iga Sibiontech (Poland). Benchic, who hit the jackpot at the season opening tournament, looked set to continue his upward trend at the Australian Open.

On the other hand, Batunkova is a complete unknown. There isn’t even a profile picture on the WTA website yet. In 2024, he received a 6-month disciplinary action for testing positive for a banned substance. There has been no win yet in the WTA regular tour or even in the WTA 125 level. In this tournament, she had to go through the preliminaries, and when she defeated Daria Kasatkina (Australia) in the first round, I thought it was a temporary upset. This was because Kasatkina’s recent condition was very poor (1 win and 4 losses in the last five games).

On Cloudbet, an overseas betting site, Benchic’s winning odds were 1.08, while Batunkova’s were 10.41. It was said that Batunkova’s chance of winning was less than 10%.

But Batunkova overturned all expectations. I wasn’t scared at all against the bench of venerable players. He minimized mistakes and embarrassed the bench. In the first and third sets that Batunkova took, she prevented less than 10 unforced errors each.

In the end, Batunkova defeated Benchic and advanced to the third round of the finals in her first Grand Slam. This was Batunkova’s first attempt at an adult tournament, including all Grand Slam qualifiers.

Before this tournament, Batunkova’s accumulated prize money was $208,880 (about 300 million won). This is less than the $786,700 (about 1.1 billion won) that Bencic collected from the last United Cup alone. Benchic’s accumulated prize money is about 15.6 million dollars (about 23 billion won), which is about 77 times different from Batunkova’s accumulated prize money.

Batunkova advanced to the third round and already earned $327,750 (about 500 million won). That’s more than her accumulated winnings.

Batunkova continues her great challenge against Elise Mertens (Belgium, 21st).

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