Tennis
“I hope I don’t play with you again.” Drama of the best tennis player in Russia in the match for the title
Daria Kasatkina / Photo: © Robert Prange / Contributor / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru
Kasatkina lost to the American in a tense final.
The first racket of Russia Daria Kasatkina is going through a difficult period in her career. The unstable game has already led to the fact that the athlete flew out of the top ten in the world rankings.
This year, Dasha is not like herself, although she continues to remain positive. And at the last grassy tournament before Wimbledon, the tennis player showed that she was still capable of being in the top.
However, they still failed to win the final. It’s all to blame for the terrible weather and the incredible luck of the opponent.
Difficult period
Kasatkina came to English Eastbourne after a failure in Berlin. A week ago, she lost in the first round to her compatriot Elina Avanesyan, who is outside the top 100 of the rankings.
For Kasatkina, this defeat was not something out of the ordinary: this year she often loses in the early stages. In half of the 14 tournaments, she did not even get to the third round.
Of the pleasant things for these six months, Dasha had only the final in Adelaide, lost by Bencic, and the semi-final in the American Charleston in early April, where Kasatkina lost to the representative of Tunisia, Ons Zhaber.
I am glad that both on hard and on clay, the Russian woman managed to achieve a high result at least once. In Eastbourne, the 26-year-old athlete felt good, but her path to the final cannot be called perfect either.
In the second round, Kasatkina outplayed Karolina Pliskova in a difficult match, and reached the semifinals on the refusal of the second seeded Frenchwoman Caroline Garcia. True, in fairness, the Russian woman led in that game, taking the first set 6:2 and winning the second 2:1.
Dasha secured the final in a match with Italian Camila Giorgi (6:2, 7:5), who, although more experienced than our tennis player, is much lower in the WTA rating (67th place).
miraculous transformation
In the decisive meeting, Madison Keys was waiting for Kasatkina. The once seventh racket of the world this season has even worse performance than Dasha. Moreover, earlier in Charleston, the Russian woman defeated the American in three sets (6:7, 6:4, 6:2), so the belief in victory was quite justified.
However, the beginning of the game was completely left to Keys. In addition, both athletes suffered from an incredible wind force, which literally did not allow them to perform a normal serve. Several times tennis players threw the ball up and caught it again, as it was simply impossible to adjust to the flight and strike. In the stands, the spectators completely blew off their hats!
Having secured a backlog, Madison easily took the set – 6:2. After a pause, Kasatkina’s failures continued: the Russian woman “burned” 1:4. There was simply nowhere to retreat, but it was hard to believe in a strong-willed victory. Keys was also constantly lucky with “snotty jokes” when the ball vilely touched the cable and fell on Dasha’s side.
Nevertheless, Kasatkina did the impossible, winning back the gap from her opponent, and with the score 5:5 she even made a second break in this game and went to serve for the set. But instead of finishing off the already seriously tired American, Dasha allowed her opponent to make a return break.
Set tie-break
With a score of 6:6 in the game, the Russian has won five times this season and lost the same number of times. But Keys had better statistics – 3:1. The beginning of the most important segment of the meeting was left for Madison – 3:0.
Of course, that didn’t mean anything. Kasatkina gradually approached the American and managed to rectify the plight. With the score 5:5, Madison achieved a match-ball: again due to the insidious cable! Dasha at that moment clutched her head and either cried or laughed from an excess of emotions. The exchange of successful draws continued…
Alas, in the end, the American took the title by defeating 15:13. 28 draws in a tie-break – incredible numbers! If you win every game outright, then this number of draws would be enough with a margin for a whole set.
Kasatkina lost, but after the match she was in a good mood:
– You know what I think about you, about your luck … I hope I won’t play with you anymore, – Dasha said ironically to her opponent.
Wimbledon starts on July 3, and Kasatkina will go there on the rise, even despite the defeat. After all, failures are different.
Source: Sportbox
I am a sports journalist who has written for a number of Sportish. I have a background in journalism and have been writing since I was young. My main focus is sports news, but I also write about general news. I am currently working as an author at Sportish.