An otherwise uneventful day in the women’s draw changed with the final match of the Thursday as the women’s draw lost a another seed. Two-time finalist Caroline Wozniacki was checked out of the US Open by Petra Cetkovska in a final set tiebreaker. Wozniacki had lost to the Czech in straight sets when they last played at Wimbledon two years ago. Now she goes the distance and holds off the nerves to win.
Wozniacki’s loss leaves just three Top 10 players left in the women’s draw, and we are just starting the third round!
Earlier, top seeds Petra Kvitova and Simona Halep had no trouble winning easily. Qualifier Johanna Konta won the longest match in US Open history at 3:23 beating slumping Wimbledon finalist Gabrine Muguruza.
“It was incredibly long,” said Konta. “But then after I had a couple glances on the clock. I’m like, Oh, okay. We have been here for a while. But otherwise, obviously it’s difficult with sweating buckets. I mean, after changing the clothes, I mean, they literally weighed like a lot. But we deal with it as best we can.”
Also, Sam Stosur, Sabine Lisicki and 2-time runner-up Victoria Azarenka were winners. Azarenka meets former US Open semifinalist Angelique Kerber in a good one on Saturday.
“She’s an amazing fighter and sometimes you feel like you’re playing against the wall,” said Azarenka of Kerber. “So I have to find a lot of ways to make her out of balance and to be aggressive and try to find empty space in the court. But she’s an amazing player. She’s been really solid, you know, throughout the year, so I’m looking forward to having this battle and test myself and try to find a way to win.”
Friday, Serena Williams continues her march toward history against fellow American Bethanie Mattek-Sands. I don’t expect much of a match there.
But there are three good matches. Venus Williams plays Belinda Bencic. The 18-year-old Bencic stunned sister Serena last month, so I’m sure Venus would like to continue her domination against the Swiss who was lucky to get this far after saving three matchpoints in the second round.
“She’ll probably give me some pointers like tomorrow or Friday,” Venus said about getting advice on Bencic from Serena. “She’s got pretty sage advice. I like to think she knows best.
“She seems to just really be in good form, making a lot of shots, just probably confident, you know. I haven’t, like, watched her every day so I’m not exactly sure.”
Some say Eugenie Bouchard is having a revival and we’ll see if that’s true when she takes on 2014 Australian Open finalist Dominika Cibulkova. I like the little Slovakian there.
And rising American star Madison Keys collides with veteran Agnieszka Radwanska.
“Well, we really had great match at Wimbledon,” Radwanska said of her 3-set win over Keys. “And hopefully we have the same kind of game here at the US Open. For sure different conditions, different surface, so different story. So we will see how it’s going to be on hard court. It will be a really tough third round. She’s playing home. Well, I just hope it’s going to be a great match.”
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