Four of the top nine seeds, including defending champion and second-seeded Coco Gauff, were eliminated on Thursday on the second round of the Cincinnati Open in Mason, Ohio.
Gauff fell to Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 in just under two hours. Gauff, who had won their three previous matchups, racked up eight aces to one by Putintseva, but the American also double-faulted nine times.
After dropping the first set, Gauff took the second set convincingly, jumping out to a 4-1 lead and claiming the set by finally breaking Putintseva’s serve on the fourth set point.
After losing her serve to fall behind 4-2 in the third set, Putintseva reeled off four straight games to close out the match.
“I think the level of the game was high, especially for those conditions — the courts are lightning fast, so I’m pretty happy to get through,” Putintseva said. “The whole match was a roller coaster. … On these kind of courts, you have to stay really focused, because the game can change quickly.”
Another Kazakhstani, fourth-seeded Elena Rybakina, came up short against Canada’s Leylah Fernandez 3-6, 7-6 (3), 6-6.
A grueling second set highlighted the 2 1/2-hour match, as each player had her serve broken three times leading up to the tiebreaker. Leading 6-5 in the set and on serve, Rykabina, who finished with 20 aces, had two match points but couldn’t put Fernandez away.
The Canadian then dominated the tiebreaker, breaking Rykabina’s serve three times, including on set point.
Fernandez said she didn’t mind an “ugly” win.
“It clearly wasn’t the best tennis,” she said. “Clearly our service games weren’t going well, too many unforced errors. I was just lucky that today I got the good end of the stick.
“I’m proud of the way I fought. It wasn’t the prettiest match, but I accepted it and I just tried to enjoy that moment even though a lot of mistakes were coming.”
Fernandez got the edge in the third set by breaking Rykabina for a 4-3 lead and never relented.
Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, the eighth seed, also won her first set but saw Elina Avanesyan of Armenia come back for a 2-6, 6-2, 6-2 victory.
Taylor Townsend knocked out ninth-seeded Daria Kasatkina of Russia 6-1, 2-6, 6-1. Townsend racked up a 15-3 edge in aces and managed to convert 5 of 13 break points against Kasatkina, who double-faulted 11 times.
The third seed, Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, advanced with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Elisabetta Cocciaretto of Italy. Another Italian fared better, as No. 5 Jasmine Paolini survived a tough first set en route to a 7-6 (2), 6-3 victory over Anastasia Potapova of Russia.
No. 10 Liudmila Samsonova of Russia survived a marathon tiebreaker in the first set and went on to defeat Magda Linette of Poland 7-6 (10), 6-1. Spain’s Paula Badosa downed Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, the 13th seed, 6-3, 6-2.
Other winners were Elina Svitolina of Ukraine and Russia’s Diana Shnaider and Mirra Andreeva.
Three other matches were affected when rain forced an early end to the action.
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia was leading Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark 7-5, 4-2; seventh-seeded Qinwen Zheng of China was trying to close out Magdalena Frech of Poland 6-1, 5-4; and the match between the sixth seed, Jessica Pegula, and Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic never began.
–Field Level Media
