Polish tennis player Iga Swiatek had more trouble than expected on Wednesday in her debut at the WTA 1,000 in Cincinnati after beating Frenchwoman Varvara Gracheva in three sets 6-0, 6-7 (8) and 6-2 in a match in which Swiatek wasted up to five match points in the second set.
A match that started with Swiatek turning into a real whirlwind to achieve a trademark bagel with 6-0 in the first set. Swiatek’s dominance did not stop there as the Pole took the second set 5-2 and rest to close the game but that’s where their problems began.
With that 5-2 down, Gracheva managed to save up to four match points and break Swiatek’s serve to tie the match. Gracheva still had to save a fifth match point. to force a tie-break in which she struggled but managed to win the second set on the fifth occasion she had against Swiatek, who recovered in the third set and, on the sixth, did manage to close out the third set and the match 6-2.
“It wasn’t easy, but I’m happy to have gone 60 and 5-2 up in my first match on hard court. But Varvara is a fighter and I wasn’t able to close out the second set. But I’m happy to have won the match in the third after starting to play as I did at the beginning of the match,” said Iga Swiatek, who will face Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk in the round of 16, who beat New Zealander Lulu Sun 6-3, 7-5.
Wednesday’s match also brought us a big surprise with the elimination of American Emma Navarro, eleventh favourite for the title, who was surprised by the young Russian Mirra Andreeva by a double 6-2. Andreeva will be looking for a place in the round of 16 against Czech Karolina Pliskova. Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia was also unable to make it to the second round, losing to Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 4-6, 7-6 (4) and 6-3 after almost three hours of play.
Yes, they solved their paperwork in the first round Russians Liudmila Samsonova (double 6-4 against Xinyu Wang) and Anna Kalinskaya (came back against Czech Katerina Siniakova 1-6, 6-2 and 6-3) and Danish Caroline Wozniacki, who was able to defeat the Ukrainian Anhelina Kalinina 6-2 and 6-4.
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