Sixteen double faults, and she still won
Alycia Parks needed 6-3, 1-6, 7-5 to get past Varvara Lepchenko in the first round of the Guadalajara Open on Sunday, and the numbers behind the win are hard to look at. Parks landed 38 of 86 first serves, 44.2 percent. She hit 16 double faults. She also hit 10 aces, which is her whole game compressed into one line of a stat sheet.
Lepchenko was not even meant to be in the draw. Egypt’s Mayar Sherif withdrew for an undisclosed reason, the fellow American took the slot as an alternate, and she promptly took the second set 6-1.
Parks trailed 3-5 in the decider. She won the last four games.
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The altitude tax
Guadalajara sits more than 1,500 metres above sea level, and the ball flies through thinner air there than at almost any other stop on the hard-court calendar. That rewards raw serve speed and punishes anyone relying on margin, which is roughly what the scoreline described for two and a half hours. A player who can hit 10 aces and 16 double faults in the same match will always find that trade steeper at this venue than at sea level.
Her reward is a second-round meeting with third seed Sara Bejlek, who received a first-round bye and arrives fresh against an opponent who has already spent three sets in the thin air.
Long afternoons across the draw
Panna Udvardy needed three sets as well. The Hungarian beat France’s Lois Boisson 6-4, 6-7 (6), 6-2, saving all three break points she faced in the deciding set and converting two of her three chances on the Boisson serve. Udvardy meets sixth seed Cristina Bucsa next, the Spaniard having closed the day by sweeping Bianca Andreescu 6-4, 6-3.
Fifth seed Janice Tjen of Indonesia came through 7-6 (6), 6-2 against Darja Vidmanova of the Czech Republic, the tiebreak the only part of the afternoon that troubled her.
Peyton Stearns was the most economical winner of the session. The American beat Colombia’s Emiliana Arango 6-3, 6-2 and now faces fourth seed Diane Parry of France, which on current form looks like the tie of the second round.
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