Bronx Open Tuesday Recap: Camila Giorgi And Andrea Petkovic Clash In Thriller - UBITENNIS

Bronx Open Tuesday Recap: Camila Giorgi And Andrea Petkovic Clash In Thriller

Four of the eight second round singles matches were decided on Tuesday.

By Matthew Marolf
6 Min Read

NEW YORK: Andrea Petkovic would start play on the main stadium court for the second consecutive day. Coming off a nice win on Monday over Wimbledon quarterfinalist Shuai Zhang, she faced another formidable opponent today in Camila Giorgi. The 27-year-old was herself a quarterfinalist at Wimbledon last year, but came into this event with a losing record in 2019. At one point this season, she went on a seven-match losing streak. Giorgi’s go-for-broke groundstroke approach can challenge almost anyone when it’s working, but can give away matches without much resistance when it’s misfiring.

In the first set, Giorgi would miss way too often. Petkovic was solid on the ground, putting pressure on Giorgi to go for too much and commit errors. Andrea took the first set 6-3 with two breaks thanks to some forceful forehands and a costly double fault from Camila.

The second set started off with more of the same. A deep forehand return from Petkovic would cause another error from Giorgi, giving Andrea a 2-0 lead. But Camila’s aggression would finally begin to pay off, as she broke right back due to some groundie winners, as well as Petkovic’s own costly double fault at deuce. They would trade more breaks as the second set progressed. At 5-5, Giorgi’s offense allowed her to dictate play and draw errors from Petkovic, who was too often on the defensive. Camila would break for 6-5, and Petkovic would slam a ball into the ground and toss her racket. Giorgi would serve out the second set 7-5.

The third set was nothing short of a roller coaster, with eight breaks of serve in this set alone. Despite the crowd being pretty thin on a weekday at this new event, they got rather loud for this battle. After Giorgi broke for 2-1, Petkovic would repeatedly swipe her racket against the court. It slipped out of her hand on the last swipe, almost hitting a ball kid who was rushing to hand Andrea her towel. Petkovic would be the first player to hold their serve in the third, earning her a 4-2 lead with some great scrambling around the court to counter Giorgi’s offense. Camila would break back by pouncing on some Petkovic second serves, and finally get her first hold of the third to even things up at 4-4. Giorgi earned a break point by smoking two forehand winners down the line, but slammed her racket on the ground and got a racket abuse warning of her own after not converting.

At 5-5, there were three extremely close line calls on the baseline. The chair umpire would overrule one particular line judge twice, with Petkovic complaining to the umpire regarding the missed calls. After that discussion, Giorgi would hit two winners to break and serve for the match. Yet Petkovic would bounce right back, prevailing in a few grueling rallies to break for 6-6 and force a deciding tiebreak. But the tiebreak would be all Giorgi. Despite a double fault giving away an early advantage, Camila would hit four winners in the tiebreak, and take it 7-3. In the end, the Italian’s oppressive ground game would prove too much. It was a captivating two-hour-and-forty-minute affair on a hot day in the Bronx.

The next match featured recent Wimbledon semifinalist Barbora Strycova against 24-year-old American Bernarda Pera, who received a wild card to enter this tournament, her first US Open Series event this summer. In the opening round, the left-handed Pera crushed Veronika Kudermetova 6-0, 6-2. Meanwhile Strycova is yet to win a match since Wimbledon last month, as she lost in both qualifying, and as a lucky loser in the main draw, last week in Cincinnati.

Today Strycova took the first set comfortably 6-3, winning two of the nine break points she earned. Pera would break first in the second, thanks to a lob that landed right inside the baseline which Strycova didn’t run for. After a second Pera break, Strycova would outdo Petkovic in today’s racket tossing contest, throwing hers nearly from the baseline all the way to her chair. Pera would claim the second set 6-2.

Bernarda would continue her momentum in the third and break Strycova four more times. Pera was feeling it at this point, with some deep returns and a few more excellent lobs. After going down two early breaks at 3-0, Strycova launched a ball well out of the stadium. The American was just too strong off the ground on this day, and took the third 6-1.

Tuesday’s other two singles matches ended in retirements. Alize Cornet was up 7-6(5), 4-0 when Zhu Lin retired with a leg injury. And Katerina Siniakova claimed the first nine games of the match before Anastasia Potapova retired in their match.

In doubles, the No.1 seeds Sam Stosur and Shuai Zhang were upset by Margarita Gasparyan and Monica Niculescu. That leaves the Taiwanese sister team of Hao-Ching Chan and Latisha Chan as the top remaining seeds, as they prevailed today in straight sets over Lyudmyla Kichenok and Galina Voskoboeva.

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