2) Monica Puig
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Monica Puig comes from Puerto Rico, a country with a population of just 3.5 million. She was born in September 1993, to a Cuban American father and a Puerto Rican mother.
Puig is an aggressive baseliner, with a more than a decent serve. She made her debut on the WTA Tour in 2010, breaking the top 100 barrier for the first time in 2013. A year later, she won her first WTA title in Strasbourg. Since then, she's been hovering between 50 and 100 in the rankings, never really able to make that big breakthrough.
Even at the start of 2016, Puig was ranked only just inside the top 100, making her participation at the Rio Olympics looking increasingly impossible.
But what happened thereafter, makes for one of the most amazing stories in the history of the Olympics. Impressive performances at the start of the season confirmed her participation at the Olympics.
Puig came into the Rio 2016 Games unseeded, ranked 34rd in the world, with nobody giving her a chance to win more than a couple of rounds, let alone winning a medal. But the young player found the magic touch, one that only athletes can describe.
Improving with every match she played, she beat reigning Roland Garros champion Garbine Muguruza 6-1 6-1 in one of her matches.
She beat two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova in the semi-finals before knocking off the Kerber in the final. Post her gold medal victory, she became an instant hero back in her country, for she was the first gold medalist, male or female, in the history of the nation. She also became the first female Puerto Rican athlete to win an Olympic medal of any color.
"The Golden Girl", as she's known since her Olympics triumph, went into a self-admitted slump post her Olympics victory, with the added weight of expectations and media attention, losing 5 matches and winning just 4.
But with much needed time off from the game to rejuvenate her mind and body, one could well expect Puig to do some serious damage in 2017. And the fact that she went from being ranked 92nd at the start of the season to being ranked 32nd at the end, despite the Olympics not offering any ranking points, shows that she has the ability to do so consistently.
