Victory over Lebanon, Tsurenko final, Parks and Zhu Lin’s first titles

The first week of tennis has come to an end after the Australian Open. During this period, men focused on Davis Cup matches, while women focused on WTA 250 tournaments in Hua Hin and Lyon.

Davis Cup

The main event of Ukrainian men’s tennis was the match match of the Davis Cup First World Group playoffs against the Lebanese team. The draw was lucky, as the competitors landed six places lower in the country rankings, with 2.5 competitive players on their roster. However, due to the internal conflict between the players and the federation, we could not boast of having received our first rackets. As a result, the forces before the start were almost equal, but we had a small advantage in the form of a good Vladislav Manafov / Ilya Beloborodko pair and the possibility of rotation for the singles matches.

On the day of the first match, Orest Tereshchuk’s team, who returned to the post of captain of the national team after more than 11 years, unexpectedly won both singles matches and determined the outcome of the match by 90%. In the opening match, Vladislav Orlov (No. 385 ATP) was expected to look stronger than Lebanese No. 2 Hadi Habib (No. 451 ATP), while in the second match Vyacheslav Belinsky (No. 622 ATP) gave a nice performance. surprised. The 19-year-old Ukrainian player managed to break the resistance of his opponents leader Benjamin Hassan (No. 324 ATP) in three sets.

But the main plus was that the third match for the men was the doubles match, which we were definitely favourites. In the first set, the Lebanese played almost on equal footing, but in the second set Manafov and Beloborodko proved that they had rightly beaten the Hungarians in September.

At the fourth meeting, which no longer decided anything, the highest scorer of this team, Alexander Ovcharenko (No. 379 ATP) appeared on the field. Lost to Benjamin Hassan in two tough sets and we’re convinced Tereshchuk knows something about captaincy.

Davis Cup. World Group One Playoffs

1st match: Vladislav Orlov – Come on Habib – 6:4, 6:2
2nd match: Vyacheslav Belinsky – Benjamin Hassan – 6:4, 2:6. 6:4
3rd match: Ilya Beloborodko / Vladislav Manafov – Benjamin Hassan / Hassan Abraham – 6:4, 6:3
4th Match: Alexander Ovcharenko – Benjamin Hassan – 5:7, 6:7(1)

Ukraine – Lebanon – 3:1

In mid-September, we will have another attempt to enter the Qualification round, but if we have not managed to assemble the strongest squad by then, then we have a chance to beat the conditional encounter with Germany, Belgium or Argentina. It will continue to be a dream. Even with the strongest roster, a lot will depend on the draw.

WTA 250 Hua Hin

This tournament, well-known to Ukrainian fans in 2019, when Dayana Yastremska won in a mega-dramatic match against Ayla Tomlyanovych, gave us pleasant feelings again. In Thailand this year, Lesya Tsurenko unexpectedly lit up. Ukraine’s former first racquet entered the new season in excellent condition, winning 10 of 12 matches on the field, except for one withdrawal before the 60,000 semi-final in Canberra.

At Hua Hin, Lesya started with tough wins against Isalin Bonaventure and Anna Kalinskaya, then disbanded the relaxed Tatiana Maria and forced Bianca Andreescu to withdraw from the semi-finals. By the way, in the first match played between these tennis players, the Canadian player could not finish the match until the end. Tennis fans should remember that tense fight at the Fed Cup, when the little-known Andreescu almost caused a sensation when he fell onto the court in the third set and was unable to continue (4:6, 6:3, 4:0 RET) ).

In the final against Zhu Lin, Lesia took a break and immediately took the lead, but the 29-year-old Chinese woman played better in this match and deservedly won. There is nothing to blame Tsurenko, he gave all his strength, this is not always enough to win. The opponent on the other side of the court deliberately advanced to the 1/8 final, defeating Sakkari and Teichmann at the Australian Open before that. Zhu Lin has never played this well and never been higher – let him enjoy his first WTA title and top 50 entry.

Dayana Yastremska and Marta Kostyuk also played in Hua Hin. Dayana defeated beloved Japanese Moyuka Uchijima in the first round, but was later demoted by Tatyana Maria. The German actively won a ball to win the meeting. Dayana’s 44 mandatory mistakes worked, but it’s not the first time Yastremska has lost a match in this scenario.

Martha outperformed, winning two meetings where she was favourite. Unfortunately, before meeting with Andreescu, he burned again and lost 11 of the first 12 matches. After that, Kostyuk managed to transfer the second set to a tie-break where the Canadian was still stronger.

WTA 250 Lyon

France had a clear favorite from the very beginning – Caroline Garcia, the seed’s leader and the world’s fifth racket. All was not well for the Frenchwoman on her way to the final, but only one set was lost. In the title match, Garcia lost to 22-year-old American Alicia Parks, who won two back-to-back WTA 125 tournaments at the end of last season but didn’t shoot at the Australian Open. We will be close to the top fifty starting Monday and we will hear his name more often in higher category tournaments.

It is also worth noting the good performance of the future champion, Belgian Marina Zanevskaya, who beat second-seeded Zhang Shuai and fifth-seeded Anastasia Potapova to the semi-finals. For an Odessa native, this was only the fourth hit in the top four in a tournament in this category.

Other tournaments

Among the challengers, it is worth highlighting Alexei Krutykh’s quarterfinals in Tenerife and Molchanov’s doubles final in Koblenz. Ilya Marchenko unfortunately failed to pass the second round for the tenth time in a row in competitions in this category. Lost to eventual finalist/winner Aleksandar Kovacevic in Cleveland.

Anastasia Soboleva, who had previously won two back-to-back wins in the ITF 15,000, tried her luck at the 25,000 where she had enough strength to reach the quarterfinals. After 12 victories in a row, the Dnipro native was unable to finish the match against an Australian opponent. I hope all is well with him, a few years ago we lost a promising tennis player after such a “race”.