Kostiuk – Sakkari 0-2: In the ’16’ of the Guadalajara Open and stayed alive to qualify for the WTA Finals

After three straight losses, Maria Sakkari returned to success by beating Ukrainian and world No. 58 Marta Kostiuk 6-4, 6-4 after 2 hours, securing her participation in the “16” of the Guadalajara Open and kept hopes alive of qualifying for the WTA Finals.

The Greek tennis player made the best use of Kostiuk’s tragic service, who finished the game with 15 double faults but also 8/33 on 2nd serve (24%), while also managing to erase 11/13 breaks -points of the Ukraine.

After 66 minutes, Sakkari needed three breaks in the first leg of the game to break Kostiuk’s resistance, with the Greek tennis player finding solutions on the first serve (70%) and winning 63% of the points as she had just done in the second 31% (4th minute). /13), at the same time the Ukrainian finished the set with 8 double faults that cost her.

The set started with Sakkari finding a break (1-0), mainly taking advantage of Kostyuk’s three double faults, two in a row at the end, but also the fact that the Ukrainian essentially served on a second serve and only 38 % of first passes had .

However, Kosticook managed to react afterwards and recaptured the lost serve after 5 break points and equalized after 20 minutes of play to make it 1-1!

A little later, after another double mistake by Kostiuk, she got a new break (3:2), but for the second time in a row the Ukrainian equalized immediately to make it 3:3 and with a relatively easy equalizer, she then made the 4th -3.

For the Ukrainian, this was also the last game won in the set, Sakkari scored 4: 4 and a little later after a double fault by Kostiuk (5: 4) made the third break in the set.

The Greek tennis player took the balls in her hands to finish the set, but to do so she had to save 2 break points to get the most crucial hold of the set.

In the 2nd set, however, the two tennis players found a rhythm on their serve at Kostiuk, threatened a double break (15/40) at Sakkari in the 6th game, but found solutions from their serve and reached one of the two large holds he in the set made (3-3).

The decisive break for the Greek tennis player came, as in the 1st set, in the 9th game through a double fault by Kostiuk (15th), with Sakkari taking the balls in hand to end the match, which she did after the first fading did Triple Breakpoint of Ukraine (0/40), who mentally collapsed in the last points, burst into tears.

In the round of 16, Sakkari meets Daniel Collins and Magdalena Frech.

Source: Tennis24