On Thursday, March 21, the women’s individual second round matches of the Miami supertournament (USA) began. At this stage the already seeded tennis players enter the fight, and one of them was Anna Kalinskaya (22). Her opponent was 22-year-old Chinese Xiyu Wang, who is ranked 56th in the WTA rankings. In the first round, Xiyu Wang, who had never played against Kalinskaya before, confidently defeated the ranked Slovak Anna Shmidlova 6:1, 6:3.
The start of the match depended entirely on Kalinskaya. The Russians attacked, dominated and Xiyu Wang did nothing but make mistakes. In the first four games, the Chinese, who served poorly, did not even have game balls. She still won a couple of her games in this game, and in the interval even got a break point, but she didn’t use it due to incorrect play on the return. Anna, who served for the set at 5-2, did not lose any points: 6-2 in 33 minutes.
In the second game, Xiyu Wang was able to avoid a disastrous start, but Kalinskaya was even better. The Russian began the set by taking her opponent’s serve on the third break point, and in the prolonged second game with five in a row, after recovering the break point with an ace, she confirmed her advantage, despite two doubles, 2 :0. After that, the Chinese had no chance to recover. In the seventh game, Anna again took someone else’s serve and then, while serving, she took advantage of the second match point: 6:2, 6:2 in 1 hour and 28 minutes.
In the third round, Kalinskaya, who thanks to this victory reached 22nd place in the live ranking and is on her way to achieving her personal best (so far she has not surpassed line 25), will play against the 2017 Roland Garros champion, 10. world racket Jelena Ostapenko (9), or with the German Laura Siegemund (Q), 36 years old.
Lyudmila Samsonova (13) took to the court with former Russian and, since 2012, Kazakh tennis player Yulia Putintseva. This was her first face-to-face confrontation. In the first round, Putintseva, the 68th racket in the world, not without difficulty defeated the representative of Spain, Cristina Buksha, 6:2, 3:6, 6:4. Today Samsonova couldn’t stop her.
In the first set, Samsonova’s serve didn’t work at all. And when she managed to pass, Putintseva, who regularly resorted to cuts throughout the match, looked better in the exchanges, made fewer mistakes and counterattacked successfully. As a result, Lyudmila did not win a single game throughout the entire game. The seventh game became the focus of failure: three double faults (in total there were six during the set) and another break by Yulia, this time to zero, 6:1 in 35 minutes.
Before the start of the second set, Samsonova briefly left the court. The Russian managed to restart: her serve began to work and attacks began to occur. Putintseva simply started serving worse and in the third game Lyudmila broke to love 2-1. And before the sixth game, Samsonova took a short medical break due to a callus on her left foot, immediately after which she lost serve to love 3:3.
Despite this, the end of the set was left in the hands of the Russian. In the ninth game, Lyudmila recovered from 30-0 on Yulia’s serve, made a second break and, serving for the game at 5-4, won the game to love – 6-4 in 56 minutes.
At the beginning of the third set, Samsonova had the advantage. She took her own games and in others she reached break points, but she did not capitalize on them (including a triple in the fifth game). In the sixth game, the Russian paid for it. Lyudmila was leading 30-0 on her serve, but Putintseva took her opponent’s serve and took it from the third break point for 4-2. In the eighth game, Yulia missed a match point on the return, but in the ninth, serving at 5:3, she took advantage of the second match point: 6:1, 4:6, 6:3 in 2 hours and 23 minutes.
This defeat was Samsonova’s third in a row. Before that, she lost to Marketa Vondrousova in the round of 16 of the “thousand” in Dubai (2: 6, 2: 6) and to Naomi Osaka in the second round of Indian Wells (5: 7, 3: 6) . .
In the third round, Putintseva will play world number 79 Gretje Minnen. The Belgian tennis player entered the net as a lucky loser and immediately moved into the second round, as 18th seed Barbora Krejcikova withdrew. She and she beat the Ukrainian Lesya Tsurenko, who finished in the top 40 of the WTA ranking, by 7: 5, 6: 1.
And 19-year-old Diana Schneider, ranked 62nd in the world, fought 2017 US Open finalist Madison Keys, seeded 17th. Schneider did almost nothing in this game. The Russian lost the first four games and in the eighth Keys served to win the set. It is true that this game turned out to be crazy: the Russian missed four break points and the American put pressure on her with the fifth set point: 6:2 in 36 minutes.
In the second game, Keys kept Schneider away from break points for a long time, and herself, after making two breaks, prepared to serve for the match at 5-2. But Diana was able to recover a match point and then converted the second break point. The second opportunity to serve for the match came from Madison with the score 5:4. And here he was not wrong: 6:2, 6:4 in 1 hour and 16 minutes.
In the third round, Keys will play the winner of the confrontation between Veronika Kudermetova (Russia, 16) and Xinyu Wang (China). This match will be played on the night of March 21-22, Moscow time.
In addition, Roman Safiullin plays in the men’s draw, where the first round ends today.
The Miami supertournament will end on March 31. Follow all the events of the “Championship”.
