The first win since the final
Maja Chwalinska had not won a tour match since she walked off court in Paris as the beaten finalist. That ended on Saturday in Mason, Ohio, where the Pole beat Spain’s Cristina Busca 6-2, 6-2 in the second round of the Cincinnati Open.
The gap has an explanation. Chwalinska went out of Wimbledon in the first round and hurt her right ankle on match point, an injury that arrived at the precise moment her season had momentum behind it. She came back last week in Toronto and lost her opening match. This was her first WTA 1000 win of the year.
“Overall I’m happy with how the recovery has gone, but it was definitely a process with some ups and downs,” she said. “It was a bit frustrating for sure, because I had some good momentum going on. But yeah, it’s just tennis, it’s sport, it’s brutal sometimes. You gotta accept it and just learn from it. I’m healthy now, I’m grateful to be here and trying to play my best tennis.”
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The return numbers told the story
Eight breaks of serve in a match that lasted two sets. Chwalinska converted six of her 11 break chances and won 28 of the 46 points Busca served, a return rate of 60.9 per cent that explains the scoreline better than any winner count would.
She arrives in Cincinnati seeded 19th, which is its own marker of what happened in Paris. She entered Roland Garros as a qualifier and left it as a finalist. Seedings at WTA 1000 events rarely come from that direction.
Diana Shnaider, the player Chwalinska beat to reach that final, was also on the winning side on Saturday, through 6-2, 7-5 against Tatjana Maria.
One seed went out
Jelena Ostapenko was the only ranked casualty of the early schedule. The 26th seed lost 6-1, 6-3 to Magdalena Frech, who broke her three times in succession in the first set and twice more in the second.
Alexandra Eala lost the opening game against Elena-Gabriela Ruse, then won nine in a row before the Romanian retired at 6-1, 3-0.
Jessica Pegula, seeded third, beat Simona Waltert 6-3, 6-2. Wimbledon champion Linda Noskova came through 6-3, 6-3 against Katie Boulter. Emma Navarro and Maria Sakkari both needed three sets, against Anhelina Kalinina and Kamilla Rakhimova respectively.
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