Puig announces daughter's birth: 'Never knew a love like this'

Olympic champion Monica Puig welcomed her first child, daughter Mila, with husband Nathan. Puig, who retired from tennis due to injuries, announced her pregnancy in February. Mila arrived just before the anniversary of Puig's historic gold medal win.

2016 Olympic champion Monica Puig recently announced that her first child, daughter Mila, was born at the end of July.

The 31-year-old former World No. 27 confessed that she "never knew a love like this existed" before welcoming Mila Alexandra Rakitt to the world with her husband of nearly three years, Nathan, on July 30.

In February, Puig announced she was pregnant -- after retiring from tennis in the summer of 2022 due to the cumulative toll of injuries -- and Mila joined the family just about two weeks prior to the nine-year anniversary of her mother's history-making gold medal triumph in Brazil. In 2016, as a 22-year-old, an unseeded Puig famously stormed through the draw to win Puerto Rico's first-ever Olympic gold medal.

And while Puig has chosen not to reveal Mila's face to her audience of 500,000-plus Instagram followers quite yet, she has been giving fans a peek at new motherhood through a series of posts on the platform.

Over the last week, she showcased candid photos from the hospital in the days after Mila's birth, her daughter meeting people close to her for the first time, and walks around town as a family of three.

Unconditional [love]," Puig captioned the photos.

“Yup,” 18-time Grand Slam champion Chris Evert wrote in the comments in consensus, while World No. 2 Coco Gauff led a flood of congratulations from Puig's one-time Hologic WTA Tour peers.

Two major finalists of Puig's era, Sabine Lisicki and Lucie Safarova, both moms, welcomed Puig to the "club" -- while others including Carla Suárez Navarro, Barbora Strycova, Tracy Austin, Shelby Rogers, Johanna Konta and Alison Riske-Amritraj also offered their well-wishes.

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