Sachko’s first title, the success of Starodubtseva, lucky (loser) Snigur, iron Andy

The first week of tennis after the French Open 2023 has come to an end, as Wimbledon kicks off in early July, players are starting to move onto grass courts. Two turf tournaments for women and men at WTA and ATP levels were played from June 12-18. Ukrainian tennis players also took part in the courts in England, but the Ukrainian representatives managed to please the fans at a slightly lower level.

WTA 250 Nottingham

Dayana Yastremska and Daria Snigur: Two Ukrainian tennis players have started qualifying for turf competitions in England. Sadly, Dayana failed her first game of the season on the turf and unexpectedly lost to Emiliana Arango in third place in the WTA rating.

Daria won the first game in the Nottingham qualifiers against Neicta Baines after a good week at 100,000 at Surbiton, where she advanced to the semi-finals. Then Snigur met with first-seeded Elisabeth Mandlik. It turned into a fight, in the third installment the Ukrainian took a 5:3 lead and served for the match, but lost 4 matches in a row and seemed to have finished his performance at Nottingham.

But Daria was lucky. Another Ukrainian tennis player, Lesya Tsurenko, withdrew from the tournament due to health problems (Lesya contracted the virus at Roland Garros), and Snigur entered the main draw of the tournament as the lucky loser. Daria would play against Beatriz Haddad Maia, the second seed of the competition. Few people trust the Ukrainian’s success in this fight, as the Brazilian racquet is the 10th racket in the world and reached the semi-finals in the French Major. However, Snigur caused a sensation by beating an experienced and elite opponent in two matches, thus surprising and delighting all Ukrainian fans.

It is noteworthy that for Snigur this victory was the second in his career in a game with representatives of the top ten WTA. At the US Open 2022, Daria won against Simona Halep, who was 7th in the standings at the time.

Unfortunately, Snigur did not reach the quarterfinals of the tournament in Nottingham. The Ukrainian in the 2nd round lost to the future winner of the competition, Katie Bulter.

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Katie Bulter and Daria Snigur

Ukraine’s first racket, Angelina Kalinina, also played at the heart of the tournament in England. In the 1/16 final, our athlete dealt with Nuria Parrizas-Diaz. However, like Snigur, he failed to qualify for the 1/4 finals. The Ukrainian lost to Harriet Dart in the sets and took the steering wheel in the first game.

The champion of the competition, as mentioned above, was the criminal Snigur Katie Bulter. For Bulter, 26, this is her first WTA title. He didn’t lose a single set on his way to victory. She won against compatriot Jodi Barrage in the cup match. Interestingly, British tennis players last faced each other in a decisive match at this level in 1977.

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Katie Boulter and Jody Burrage

WTA 250 / ATP 250’s-Hertogenbosch

These competitions were supposed to be interesting for the Ukrainian fans because Elina Svitolina, who received the WC from the organizers, could play there. But the former third racket in the world refused to participate in the turf tournament in the Netherlands. Elina will start the lawn in 2023 in Birmingham.

The women’s cup was won by Ekaterina Alexandrova, the representative of 404 countries, who defeated her compatriot Veronika Kudermetova in the final.

Domestic tennis player Tallon Grikspor won the men’s championship. He defeated Jordan Thompson in the final match. For Tallon, this is the 2nd trophy in 2023 and an ATP-level career. He won the competition in Pune, India at the beginning of the year. Interestingly, the Dutchman also won the title at ‘s-Hertogenbosch last season. Then it was Tim van Reithoven.

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Tallon Grixpor and Jordan Thompson

ATP 250 Stuttgart

The composition was not the strongest, but neither were famous tennis players. It was difficult to say that first place Stefanos Tsitsipas was the favourite. The Greek player was eliminated in the 2nd round by experienced Richard Gasquet, who won his 600th career victory. Note that only three current tennis players have more wins than Richard – Rafael Nadal (1068), Novak Djokovic (1058) and Andy Murray (725).

It turned out that the finale of the competition certainly didn’t make the most sense, but it wasn’t exactly unexpected. Jan-Lennard Struff, who built his game on serving, met with third seeded and showman Francis Tiafoe. The winner was determined at the tie-break of the third set, which the American won with a score of 10:8.

Now Tiafoe will enter the top 10 in the ATP rankings starting Monday.

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Francis Tiafoe and Jan-Lennard Struff

Breakthrough Vitaliy Sachko

A few months ago we wrote that Sachko is clearly making progress, despite not delivering high results. Finally, Vitaly gave the game everyone expected of him.

The 25-year-old Ukrainian kicked off with clay challenge qualifiers in Bratislava. It was not worth waiting for Sachko to even reach the semifinals of the tournament, but he not only did it, he even won the cup. Along the way, Sachko beat compatriot Ilya Marchenko, as well as defeating Federico Coria (ATP 93) to achieve the highest-scoring victory of his career. Then the Ukrainian closed Thomas Barrios Vera in the semi-finals and defeated Dimitar Kuzmanov in the cup match.

In the final match, Sachko lost the first set, but calmly took the second game and managed to return to the game. In the third set, Vitaliy failed to apply for the match at 5:4, lost 2 games in a row, flew 0:30 on his serve, but still turned the game into a tie-break and won by one point. 7:2.

For Vitaly, this is the first award at the Challenger level. He will now return to the top 200 in the ATP standings and will struggle to get into the US Open 2023 qualifiers. At least I want to believe in this and its progress…

Instagram. Vitaly Sachko

Cup Starodubtseva

Ukrainian Yulia Starodubtseva continues to advance in every tournament. Yuliya played in Sumter (USA) this week in the 60,000. Starodubtseva took 8th place and was considered one of the favorites, considering that she was not the strongest squad. As a result, the Ukrainian tennis player won the second championship of the season and became the owner of the cup.

However, the Ukrainian’s success should not be underestimated due to the lack of strong players. Besides a well staged play, Yulia proved that everything was fine with her character. Already in the first match, Yulia was behind her opponent 2:5, but at first she was able to get 5 games in a row, so she won the first set, and then hung the steering wheel in the second game.

Then Starodubtseva lost the opening set to Kessler 1:6, but won the next two games by the same score. Interestingly, Yulia reached the doubles final with Kessler but did not win the trophy.

In the quarter-finals, the Ukrainian defeated the top-seeded Stacey Fung in two sets, in the semi-finals – third-seeded Liv Hold and in the final – second-seeded Karman Kaur Thandi. The match for the cup was interrupted by rain and lasted for 3.5 hours, but Starodubtseva won in three sets with the scores of 6:7, 7:5, 6:4. As they say, not without validol, but the result is the result.

Thanks to her success, Julia entered the top 300 in the WTA rankings. Recall that although he is 23 years old, he only started playing professionally in 2023. This is because Julia was educated in the USA where she played on the college/university team.

Andy Murray and his preparation for Wimbledon

Iron Andy kidnapped Roland Garros and concentrated on the lawn. Positioning himself as Scottish, the 36-year-old British representative won the second Challenger in a row.

Murray took the trophy this week at Nottingham and last week at Surbiton. 10 wins in a row for 2 weeks. Needless to say, will Andy make it to Wimbledon in good shape?

Murray is back in the top 40 for the first time since hip replacement surgery. Later, Sir will perform at the ATP 500 at the Queen’s Club in London. In the first round he will meet the “demon” – Alex de Minaur.

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Andy Murray