WTA Cincinnati: Yastremska and Azarenka successful, Gauff eliminated
The first major WTA event since the tour was interrupted due to COVID-19 celebrated its starting shot on Saturday. Dayana Yastremska and Victoria Azarenka got off to a successful start, while youngster Coco Gauff has left.
by Michael Rothschädl
last edit:
Aug 23, 2020, 07:58 am
One duel in particular promised a lot of excitement in the run-up to yesterday Saturday: the first-round encounter between Venus Williams and Dayana Yastremska. And the fans in front of the TV sets, in New York City is known to be played without fans on site, they were not disappointed. A hot exchange developed, in which Williams first had a bit of the upper hand. The US-American consequently secured round one 7: 5.
But then Dayana Yastremska took over the command, was able to equalize with a 6: 2 and secured a hard-fought opening victory with 7: 5 in the third set. With two hours and 36 minutes of play, it was not the longest game of the day. Veronika Kudermetova had to fight for 2:46 hours in her success over Ajla Tomljanovic.
Azarenka and Sakkari storm in round two
Victoria Azarenka, who met Donna Vekic in her first-round match, was much more in a hurry. The Croatian went into the race as an easy favorite, but had to watch quite clearly as Azarenka seized the match and was allowed to leave the field victoriously after a little more than an hour with 6: 2 and 6: 3. Maria Sakkari was in an even more urgent hurry, she only stopped 1:05 in her opening match with Coco Gauff and made it 6: 1 and 6: 3 in round two.
The number nine of the tournament, Elena Rybakina, however, had to give up. The Kazakh had to admit defeat to the Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova in two contested sets. Heather Watson and Alison Riske also lost their first round matches, the British lost to Bernarda Pera, Riske had no chance against Amanda Anisimova.