No reservations at Olympics for former waitress Bacsinszky
Three years after becoming so disillusioned with tennis that she waited tables and mixed drinks in bars, Timea Bacsinszky is shouldering the Swiss Olympic burden that had been destined for Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka. The multi-lingual 27-year-old lost her passion for the the sport in 2012 when a left foot injury and a fractured relationship with her father saw her ranking eventually slump to 285. She also sat out the 2012 Olympics in London and, convinced that her playing days were over, she worked in hospitality while studying for a diploma in hotel management. Her love for the game was rekindled in 2013 when she received an email telling her there was a place for her in French Open qualifying despite not having played for months. She got time off work, leapt in her car, and drove through the night from Lausanne to reach Paris. Although she lost in the first round, Bacsinszky was convinced that she could grasp a second chance at playing. She was proved right. In 2015, she made the French Open semi-finals, the first Swiss woman since Martina Hingis in 14 years to get that far at Roland Garros. Hingis is her doubles partner in Rio and having reached a career high of nine in May this year, she is also amongst the favourites to medal in singles. - 'Super-perfectionist' - "I still remember my first Olympics in Beijing. I was 19 but I wasn't enjoying the Olympic experience," said Bacsinszky. "I was a super-perfectionist. I was in my room at 9pm every night, not going anywhere or talking to people. "Now I have more experience. I am in a different position." Bacsinszky, a first round loser in Beijing, says she has been inspired by the new movie Race, based on Jesse Owens' legendary performances at Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics. "It gave me goosebumps," she said. Bacsinszky and Hingis were paired together at the last minute after Belinda Bencic, her original partner, pulled out. Hingis, 35, is playing an Olympics for the first time in 20 years. But the two women have never played doubles together and the veteran Hingis only arrived in Rio on Tuesday afternoon. "I have followed Timea since she was a little girl. I have seen her grow and mature and she is showing who she is as a person and a player," said Hingis who also lost injured Federer from the mixed doubles shake-up. Bacsinszky is just as much a fan of Hingis describing the opportunity to play with her as "awesome". However, she is not such a huge admirer of Rio's infamous mosquitoes whose Zika virus-bearing ability caused many athletes to opt out of the Games. "On the bus the other day, there were two mosquitoes -- I killed them," she explained. "It wasn't that glamourous. We have a saying in French -- 'les petits ne mange jamais les grands', 'the small never eat the big'. "That's how I secured my trip in Rio. But if they bite me, they bite me."
