Tennis: Olympic gold medalist Puig sees hope for Puerto Ricans

New York - Puig has never made it past the round of 16 at a major

Monica Puig gazed out at her fellow Puerto Ricans jamming the parade route, and in their eyes she saw hope.
They hailed her with "a sense of satisfaction," she recalled on Saturday, "and a sense of belief that things are going to get better."
Throughout her stunning run to the Olympic tennis gold medal, Puig embraced the symbolism of each upset victory. An economic crisis is devastating the island of her birth, and she appreciated that if she could prove the impossible is possible, that message would reverberate far beyond sports.
"If Puerto Rico channels that same energy and belief that things will get better and working for the better of the island, the better of the community, things will improve," Puig said four days after the US territory honoured its Olympic team and, above all, its first gold medalist.
"I really hope I gave them a lot of confidence moving forward," she added, "that things will actually get better."
The world's 34th-ranked women's tennis player met with a roomful of reporters on Saturday, exactly two weeks after she beat Australian Open champ Angelique Kerber in three sets in the final in Rio de Janeiro. Poised and philosophical in ways that bely her age, the 22-year-old realises some people deem her gold medal "a fluke."
After all, Puig has never made it past the round of 16 at a major. And at the US Open, which starts today, she's never advanced beyond the second round. Puig is already bracing herself for the reality that her run at Flushing Meadows could fall well short of what took place in Rio.
"I'm 22 years old. There's still a long way for me to go, a long stretch of career," she said. "If anything happens, any kind of slip-up, it's not really going to be a big deal, because I have a process and I have a long-term view of where I want to go."
Which isn't to say she expects a slip-up.
"I know that the Olympics wasn't a fluke for me, because I have worked very hard to get to where I am," Puig said. "I know the hours and the tears and the sweat and everything that's been put into my practices. It's been very difficult for me.
"But that moment, nobody will be able to take away."
Even she considers that Olympic moment to be like something out of a movie script. When spectators chanted "Si se puede!" ("Yes you can!" in Spanish) during the final against the second-ranked Kerber, Puig flashed back to a scene from the film "Miracle" about the 1980 US Olympic hockey team.
With fans roaring "U-S-A!" coach Herb Brooks tells his players: "Listen to them. That's what you've done." As Puig said Saturday, "I needed to listen to the crowd."
Her gold might not have been quite as unlikely as the Miracle on Ice, but it wasn't too far off. The night after her victory, Puig slept with the medal on her nightstand, waking up every few hours to make sure it was real. She still feels the need to check up on it during the day.
"I see the videos and I'm like, 'Did this really just happen?'" Puig said.