NEW YORK: In the first match of the day on Victor Kiam Stadium, Andrea Petkovic took on Shuai Zhang. Petkovic is a former top 10 player, but finds herself ranked 89^th in the world with an 8-14 record this season. With that ranking, she’s been forced to play qualifying at many tournaments. Painfully, she’s failed to qualify at six tournaments this year despite winning the first round of qualifying at all of those events. She’s directly into this new, smaller WTA event. But in the opening round faced a tough draw in the fourth seed Zhang, who was a quarterfinalist at Wimbledon just last month.

In the first set, the players would trade three straight breaks, with Petkovic breaking twice thanks to some penetrating forehands. After serving out the first set, the 31-year-old German would break two more times to open the third, yet Zheng returned the favor to even the second at 3-3. Much like the first set though, a few crucial forehand winners would get Petkovic the break to go up 5-4. All that was left was a Petko hold, followed by a Petko dance, to cap off a satisfying win in straight sets.

After missing some critical serves earlier in the first set, Petkovic would say tell the on-court interviewer that her ace on set point was out of frustration. “Sometimes you’ve got to use violence, I guess,” she cheekily said in the post-match interview. Andrea will faYce another recent Wimbledon quarterfinalist in the next round in Camila Giorgi, who comfortably defeated Margarita Gasparyan today in the second match on the Bronx Open’s main court.

The crowd was rather sparse to start the day, not surprising for a new event about an hour outside midtown Manhattan at 10:00am local time on a Monday. However, there were a few vocal Petko fans, who Andrea came over to thank after the match. Contrarily, Yulia Putintseva wouldn’t have quite as much fun on this day.

In the second match of the day on Pershing Square Stadium, Putintseva faced Lin Zhu, a 25-year-old qualifier from China. It all started off well for Yulia, who moved Zhu all around the court with drop shots, lobs, and passes, gaining herself the break in the third game. But it all started to unravel when she attempted to serve out the set at 5-4, as a few close line calls didn’t go Putintseva’s way. She had no recourse as there is no Hawkeye at this tournament, and the chair umpire would not overrule.

After getting broken for 5-5, Yulia would call the trainer to have her right arm and shoulder worked on. She’d earn three break points immediately following the medical timeout, but after failing to capitalize on any of them, Yulia would become even more frustrated. She would complain about another close line call, and regarding the ball kids not retrieving her towel quickly enough. She’d eventually toss her racket against the wall, as well as slam it down on the ground after serving a double fault in the tiebreak. When she went down 5-1 in the tiebreak, she hit a ball in the direction of her coach. Her coach spent much of this time looking down at his nails, especially when she sought his eye contact. Zhu would take the first set tiebreak 7-2.

The second set would see drive Putintseva find even more things to complain about: more close line calls, more ball kid frustration, fans talking in the crowd, and police sirens. She would even mock Zhu’s team for cheering their player on, feeling they were cheering her errors. In between service points, Yulia could be heard saying, “Unbelievable, this tournament is unbelievable.” That was shortly followed by, “God help me.” Putintseva would lose the second set and the match, and immediately gripe to the chair umpire regarding the conditions she had to play under. That may have been both the first and the last match in the Bronx for Putintseva.

In other action on Monday, American CoCo Vandeweghe continued to fight her way back from a foot injury that sidetracked her 2018 season and caused her to miss most of this season as well. Two years ago, she reached the quarters or better at three of the four Majors. Now she finds herself ranked 466^th in the world, and received a wild card into this event. Today in just her third match of 2019, she took just three games at the hands of Anna Blinkova. It’s going to be a long road back for CoCo, was just 19 months ago was ranked inside the top 10.

Madison Keys claimed the biggest title of her career by beating Svetlana Kuznetsova 7-5 7-6(5) in the Western and Southern Open final in Cincinnati.

It was an amazing week for the American, particularly as she had only won one match in the last two months leading up the event.

The World No.18 referenced this lack of form when she thanked her team for their help and said to them, “If you told me a week ago this was where I would be, I would have laughed in your face.”

Conditions were slower for the final than they had been in previous rounds due to the high levels of humidity in the air, and Keys struggled to adjust initially. She dropped her serve in the opening game and fell 3-1 behind.

However, the American gradually began to adapt. She almost broke in game six, held off three break points in game seven and then eventually got the break she needed in game ten thanks to intelligent point construction and typically ferocious hitting.

With her confidence restored, Keys held easily to move 6-5 ahead. She then capitalised on some weak serving from Kuznetsova to break again and clinch the opening set.

Keys fights back again in the second set

Madison Keys (@CincyTennis on Twitter)

To the Russian’s credit, she responded well to her disappointment. She manoeuvred the American around the court and drew several errors from her racket to open up a 3-1 lead once again.

Keys did not panic. She hit a series of trademark winners during three excellent service games that enabled her to stay in touch with Kuznetsova at 5-4.

Unfortunately for the Russian, she seemed just as nervous when she served for the second set as she had been in the first. She did not make many first serves or put the American under much pressure with her groundstrokes. This produced a predictable result: another break of serve for the World No.18.

Keys survived a break point on her serve to make it 6-5. Then Kuznetsova steadied herself to hold comfortably and avoid losing four games in a row as she did in the opener.

After five routine points in the tie-break, the American earned a mini-break to go 4-2 up. She hit a deep backhand and the Russian could do nothing more than hit it into the net.

Keys maintained her two-point advantage to set up two championship points at 6-4. On the second, she sealed glory with a powerful serve that Kuznetsova found too hot to handle.

23-time grand slam champion Serena Williams and umpire Carlos Ramos will be kept apart during the US Open following their high-profile spat at the tournament 12 months ago.

During the final of the US Open last year, controversy erupted when Ramos issued Williams with a violation for receiving coaching from the stands. Something which is prohibited in grand slam tennis. A livid Williams denied any wrongdoing immediately after. Suggesting the decision was sexist before calling the official a ‘liar’ and a ‘thief.’ In total, Williams was hit with three violations that resulted in a game penalty.

Stacy Allaster, who is the president of the USTA, has confirmed that Ramos will not be allowed to officiate Williams or her sister’s Venus’ matches during the grand slam. Saying that she didn’t want to cause a ‘distraction.’ This decision is said to be applied only to the 2019 tournament.

“We don’t need to go there,” Allaster told The New York Times in a telephone interview. “There are more than 900 matches here over the three weeks, and there are lots of matches for Carlos to do.”
“We want to be focused on the competition and want to go forward,” she added.

Ramos, who is from Portugal, was never found guilty of doing anything wrong during the match. The International Tennis Federation issued a statement shortly after the incident. In it, they said that Ramos ‘undertook his duties as an official, according to the relevant rule book and acted at all times with professionalism and integrity.’

Regardless of the move by the USTA to try and stay clear of the Williams-Ramos incident, it is set to be thrown back into the media spotlight in the coming days. Sports network ESPN will air a documentary called “Serena vs. The Umpire” on Sunday for the first time. It will be narrated by Pulitzer Prize winner Don Van Natta, Jr.

“We’re exploring stories that are unresolved and have layers to them, and that’s certainly the case with what happened at last year’s US Open women’s final,” said John Dahl, Vice President and Executive Producer, ESPN Special Projects and Original Content. “With this and subsequent stories, viewers will follow along with Don on his deep dive for truth.”

The TV program is set to include Patrick Mouratoglou, who is the coach of Williams. Pam Shriver and Chris Evert are also set to feature.

The US Open will get underway on August 26th.