She is the first Puerto Rican in history to win a gold medal at the Olympics while representing Puerto Rico , having done so in at the women's singles event. On 26 September , she reached her career-high singles ranking of world No. On 25 May , she peaked at No. With the feat, she also became the first Latin American champion in the women's singles discipline and is the only unseeded female player to win the gold medal since the reintroduction of tennis in She retired from the professional tour on 13 June In , she entered her first tournament at the Prince Cup, but withdrew from the qualifying draw.
In , she started the season with a surprise run to the final of the Costa Rica Bowl Grade 3 as a qualifier, losing in straight sets to Eugenie Bouchard.
She continued her good form, winning two out of three tournaments. Puig continued good results in small Grade-3 and-4 tournaments. She continued to participate in bigger tournaments, though not with as much success as she had in the smaller ones.
Puig had her breakthrough season in ; she started doing much better in the bigger tournaments. She continued playing consistently, highlights of the latter months of the year included a semifinal appearance at a Grade-B1 tournament in Tulsa, losing to Bouchard in three sets.
In her next tournament, she won the doubles title. In , she continued her success at a higher level. Puig followed that up with a semifinal appearance at a Grade-1 tournament in Barranquilla. Consistent results followed, before a huge Grade-A title at the 27th Copa Gerdau, defeating Jessica Pegula in the final. After a semifinal appearance at another Grade-A calibre tournament, she fell in the quarterfinals of the French Open. After that, she failed to advance past the quarterfinals of any of her tournaments until the US Open , where she lost to Yulia Putintseva.
