Fourth seed Elina Svitolina revealed she had been dealing with injury issues at the Australian Open after successfully negotiating a tricky second round match against Katerina Siniakova on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The Ukrainian conceded only her second set in seven matches this year but ultimately found a way past her Czech opponent 4-6 6-2 6-1 as the temperatures soared on Rod Laver Arena.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very tough for me today,\u201d the 23-year-old said. \u201cI didn\u2019t feel good and hopefully I can recover and be ready for next match. I had some issues before the start of the (tournament), it was like big question that I\u2019m going to step on court for my first round.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next match will be against 15-year-old compatriot Marta Kostyuk, the 521-ranked qualifier who doubled down on her maiden grand slam victory on Monday with a 6-3 7-5 win over local Olivia Rogowska on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst time I heard about her when she won here,\u201d said Svitolina. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty cool that I\u2019m playing someone from my country. It\u2019s gonna be very exciting for me and hopefully I can be ready for that match.\u201d<\/p>\n
Svitolina had been firming as one of the favourites in a wide open race for the Melbourne Park crown after winning the Brisbane International warm-up event.<\/p>\n
Her first set performance against Siniakova clearly sounded a warning to Svitolina about letting any kind of complacency creep into her head as she earned six break points but failed to convert a single one of them.<\/p>\n
World number 59 Siniakova, who also took Svitolina to three sets at the U.S. Open last year, really went for her shots, hitting 11 winners, and it was she who managed to get the upper hand in an arm-wrestle of a 50-minute set.<\/p>\n
Svitolina finally got her first break at the eighth attempt to go 2-0 up in the second set.<\/p>\n
Siniakova never gave up but was not the same threat after a seven-minute medical timeout in the second set and Svitolina claimed the victory with an unreturnable serve after two hours and 14 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second and third set was 6-2 6-1, but I felt like it was 7-6 in the third or 8-6 in the third,\u201d said Svitolina. \u201cIt was very tough for me today. Not feeling great and was not focused on the right things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dream Grand Slam debut for 15-year-old Kostyuk<\/p>\n
Ukrainian 15-year-old Kostyuk became the youngest player to reach the third round of a grand slam in over 20 years when she defeated local wildcard Olivia Rogowska on Wednesday. Croatia\u2019s Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, who made the third round of the 1997 U.S. Open also at 15, was the previous youngest player to advance to that stage of a grand slam.<\/p>\n
In her grand slam debut and first main draw appearance at a WTA tournament, qualifier Kostyuk had already become the youngest player to win a match at the Australian Open since Martina Hingis\u2019s quarter-final run in 1996, when the Swiss was 15 years and four months old.<\/p>\n
The reigning Australian Open junior champion\u2019s 6-3 7-5 win over Rogowska at Margaret Court Arena made 521st-ranked Kostyuk A$142,500 ($113,500) richer in prize money, having earned only $6,733 coming into the match.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I already know a little bit where I\u2019m going to spend this, but I didn\u2019t really think, because, you know, like (making) some big investment or something,\u201d Kostyuk told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I\u2019m still keeping money. It\u2019s like I got it and I go and spend. Maybe I will get the presents for my family, first of all, of course. Because I have a big family. And then for myself a bit. Yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
Appearing completely at ease during her post-match media duties, Kostyuk said she still had to process her achievement before worrying about her next round.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still didn\u2019t think about that match,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m still, with emotions, I\u2019m still with this match, and it\u2019s my sixth match here. I feel like with every match, I\u2019m doing better and better.\u201d<\/p>\n
The daughter of tennis parents, home-schooled Kostyuk is managed by Ukrainian former top-10 player Ivan Ljubicic, a member of Roger Federer\u2019s entourage.<\/p>\n
She despatched Chinese first round opponent Peng Shuai, a former U.S. Open semi-finalist, 6-2 6-2 in the first round and bashed 22 winners against 26-year-old Rogowska.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t feel like she was 15 at all,\u201d Rogowska told reporters. \u201cYeah, honestly, the power of her shots were \u2014 I didn\u2019t feel like she was 15, but obviously, yeah, she\u2019s swinging freely \u2026 I feel she\u2019s going to be a dangerous player when she grows up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite her comprehensive win over the Australian, Kostyuk said she had struggled to control her emotions and was fuming when given a code violation for coaching after her mum gestured at her from the players\u2019 box.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so mad, because I didn\u2019t see what mom was showing me. Then when the referee said code violation, I was, like, \u2018What? I didn\u2019t even see her, like \u2014 like, I swear I didn\u2019t see what she was showing me\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fourth seed Elina Svitolina revealed she had been dealing with injury issues at the Australian Open after successfully negotiating a tricky second round match against Katerina Siniakova on Wednesday. The Ukrainian conceded only her second set in seven matches this year but ultimately found a way past her Czech opponent 4-6 6-2 6-1 as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19033,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19032"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19034,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19032\/revisions\/19034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}