Serena claws out opening victory over hard-hitting Rus
Serena Williams battled back from the brink against Dutch qualifier Arantxa Rus on Monday.
NEW YORK (AFP) - Serena Williams battled back from the brink against Dutch qualifier Arantxa Rus on Monday, dominating a third-set tiebreaker to reach the third round of the Western & Southern Open.
Williams, seeded third, is the highest seed remaining in the women s draw of the tournament, moved this year from Cincinnati to New York to put players in a coronavirus quarantine "bubble" at the venue that will host the US Open starting on August 31.
Top seed Karolina Pliskova and No. 2 Sofia Kenin both bowed out in second-round openers -- and it looked like 23-time Grand Slam champion Williams could follow them before she roared back to beat Rus 7-6 (8/6), 3-6, 7-6 (7/0).
Williams dropped four straight games in the second set against the hard-hitting left-hander, who has never won a WTA title.
After rallying from 0-40 down in the opening game of the third she looked to have turned the tide with a service break on the way to a 3-0 lead.
Serving for the match at 5-3 in the third, Williams was broken to love, Rus winning the next two to give herself a chance to serve it out.
She was broken, and Williams crushed her in the tiebreaker to wrap up a bruising victory in two hours and 49 minutes.
"That was tough. It was a real physical match out there," said Williams, who tried to pump herself up on the spectator-free Grandstand court with fist-pumping cries of "c mon" and squeals of triumph and frustration.
"I had a crowd in my head or something," Williams said. "It was actually funny to me. I don t know. For me, it was like there was a crowd there."
It was Williams fourth three-set match since she returned at a tournament in Lexington, Kentucky, in the wake of the WTA s coronavirus shutdown.
But she said fitness work during the downtime had her ready.
"I m actually super fit and I m super ready," she said.
Fourteen aces, including one at 121 mph, helped her cause as she booked a third-round meeting with 13th-seeded Maria Sakkari of Greece, who beat Kazakhstan s Yulia Putintseva 6-4, 7-6 (7/9).
Two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, the sixth seed, joined the exodus of women s seeds, beaten 2-6, 7-5, 6-2 by fellow Czech Marie Bouzkova.
Eighth-seeded Briton Johanna Konta moved on with a 6-2, 6-0 victory over Belgian Kirsten Flipkens.
With world number one and top seed Novak Djokovic due to launch his campaign Monday, third-seeded defending champion Daniil Medvedev launched his defense with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Marcos Giron.
