The first two rounds of the U.S. Open are now over and there were a lot of unexpected results, actually, at least in the second round. Of course I refer to the girls’ tournament only since, as usual, I completely ignore what’s happening on the boys’ side.
As a change, I want to start mentioning an Italian player (also because no Welsh have competed in the tournament), i.e. Elisabetta Cocciaretto, who has managed to qualify for the third round: this cannot be defined as a fully unexpected result, but still a good achievement for the Italian, who managed to beat in the process Mae Hontama and the American Redelijk.
Taking bit more of an “international view”, no big upsets occurred in the first round, except, at least to a certain extent, for the defeat of Taylor Johnson against the Argentinian Carle; also, the fact that Kostyuk lost the first set against Nahimana can be defined as an unexpected event; nevertheless, the Ukrainian won the following two sets by 6-0 6-0.
In the second round, instead, many top seeded girls were defeated: Flagellum Dei Kostyuk unexpectedly surrendered to Emily Bolton, who won with the score of 7-6 6-2. The other big surprise was the defeat of the first seed, Whitney Osuigwe, against Anastasia Kharitonova: though, let’s think about it for a second; the Russian ranks 29th in the Junior ITF tour and she is two years older than Osuigwe: the fact that Whitney has won the French Open does not mean that she cannot lose any match and I guess that this defeat against an older and strong player can be fully acceptable to her. Another result I want to mention is surprising only in theory: our young friend Cori Gauff has qualified for the third round having beaten, in the second, the fifth seed Carson Branstine by 6-4 6-4. We already know that this result cannot be defined as a complete upset, even if Gauff has still a very low (or high…) ranking and was admitted to the main draw through a wild card. In the third round Gauff will play against the American Hewitt, who I have never heard of; at this stage, maybe Cori cannot be judged as a favourite to win the trophy but, indeed, she may play a primary role in this tournament.
I have seen one match of the second round, i.e. Amanda Anisimova vs. Kamilla Rakhimova. The latter currently ranks 37th whilst Anisimova is the fourth seed of the tournament; there was no match between the two, really, since Anisimova easily won by 6-2 6-2 in less than an hour; Amanda has proven to be a much more mature player than her opponent; this is not surprising, since Anisimova owns considerable experience on the Junior Tour and she is a top 200 on the Pro Tour; instead, Rakhimova’s ranking on the Junior Tour at the end of 2016 was 87 and she owns virtually no experience on the Pro Tour. Also physically there is a huge gap between the two, since Anisimova is much taller and thicker than her opponent.
It would be useless to describe the match in detail since, on 2-2 on the first set, Anisimova took a break lead and Rakhimova was not able at any point to regain some grip on the match. Though, since it was the first time I saw Anisimova playing, I take the occasion to spend few words on her. Notwithstanding her noticeable height, Amanda does not serve particularly fast, always around 100 mph; though, at least in this match, she was fantastically consistent with her serve, being able to place 65% of first serves in and to win 77% of the points. In any case, the shot of Anisimova which impressed be the most, by far, was her double handed backhand, which I find to be pure poetry; the swing is completely effortless and fluid, it seems even slow when you watch it; but she hits rockets with that shot. I find Amanda’s backhand as beautiful as Li Na’s, actually. It was a winner after the other, both crosscourt and down the line, and I was actually surprised by the fact that Rakhimova continued to play against her opponent backhand. Throughout all the match Rakhimova was not able to find any effective opposition to the power of her opponent’s shots: whenever she hit a second serve, Rakhimova found herself in great troubles against the aggressive returns of the American and many, many times she was just able to passively defend or she couldn’t even hit the following shot, since she found the (very fast) ball in the strings of her shoes. In the middle of the second set, Rakhimova appeared to be very frustrated by the situation, being basically impeded to play her game. Rakhimova, in any case, should remain confident since, in the few occasions in which she was not immediately (ferociously) attacked, she has shown a very enjoyable base line game, and there is no surprise in the fact that she has suffered so much the pace of an opponent who was 5 feet taller than her.
I foresee the most interesting matches of the third round to be Waltert vs. Carle – in my view the Swiss should be the favourite – and Gauff against Hewitt, just to see if Gauff will be able, at 13, to reach a quarter final in a slam tournament. Another match I will focus on will be Rybakina against Cocciaretto: but maybe this will be most interesting for Italians and for Rybakina’s relatives only.
