Belinda Bencic of Switzerland wins tennis singles gold.

Belinda Bencic of Switzerland won gold in the women’s singles tennis tournament on Saturday night, beating Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic and positioning herself to be one of very few players to win singles and doubles gold in the same Olympics.

Bencic edged out Vondrousova in a tight third set to win the match, 7-5, 2-6, 6-3, breaking Vondrousova’s serve in the eighth game of the final set after taking an extended break during a changeover to have the big toe on her right foot bandaged heavily by a trainer.

Bencic did not seem frustrated by the medical timeout, and as the trainer wrapped the toe she bounced in her seat to “High Hopes” by Panic! At the Disco, which played over the stadium’s loudspeakers.

Vondrousova had a break point against Bencic in the next game, but could not convert and then had errors on the next to points to give Bencic the win.

Bencic is scheduled to play in a women’s doubles final on Sunday, partnering with Viktorija Golubic on Sunday against the top-seeded team of Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova from the Czech Republic.

If Bencic can win the doubles gold, she would be only the fourth woman to win singles and doubles gold at the same Games, a feat last accomplished by Serena Williams in 2012 in London. Bencic had hoped to also play mixed doubles in tandem with Roger Federer, but Federer chose not to play in Tokyo while dealing with an injured knee.

Bencic’s showdown with Vondrousova, which featured the players mostly trading powerful groundstrokes, was far more quiet and subdued than what Tokyo Games organizers had hoped for, even with restrictions on fans because of the coronavirus pandemic. The stands were nearly empty, and the sparing moments of applause from Swiss and Czech delegations and volunteers was far outweighed by the vibrating buzz of cicadas (a summer fixture in Tokyo) and the rumbling of cars passing on a nearby freeway.

The allure of the tournament for casual fans was all but erased earlier in the week when Vondrousova routed Naomi Osaka in the third round, wrecking the hopes of many Japanese for a signature Olympic moment of a gold for Osaka, one of the country’s biggest sporting stars. Osaka lit the Olympic cauldron during the opening ceremony, but lost to Vondrousova in roughly an hour and said afterward that the weight of her challenge played into her defeat.

“I should be used to it by now, but the scale of everything is a bit hard because of the break that I took,” she said following a defeat that drew harsh criticism in Japan, perhaps undercutting efforts in the country to highlight the racial diversity of its athletes.

Earlier Saturday, Elina Svitolina of Ukraine came back from a bad first set to defeat Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan for bronze, 1-6, 7-6 (5), 6-4.

The men’s final is scheduled for Sunday between Alexander Zverev of Germany and Karen Khachanov of Russia.