Elina Svitolina came up short at the Western & Southern Open Friday. The Ukrainian’s delay from Thursday took a toll on her maintaining energy that didn’t come together against Julia Goerges who upset the fifth seed in straight sets 7-5, 6-4 on Court 10 at Linder Family Tennis Center. It was the second top ten victory for 28-year-old securing a spot in the quarterfinals.
The two met in Fed Cup action earlier this year with the German smashing Svitolina in the last two sets. Goerges has been on a tear so far in the tournament knocking out Agnieszka Radwanska in her opening match. She followed it up with another win over Canada’s Francoise Abanda making her a serious threat for the world number five. The Ukrainian sat on a six-game winning streak that included Wednesday’s rain delayed victory over fellow Ukrainian Lesya Tsurenko. With a full day off for the Ukrainian, it would be up to her to use the newfound energy as an advantage against the hard-hitting German.
She had a rocky start to open the set going down in the score, but the 22-year struck back to force deuce and keep hold of serve. Goerges had a cleaner start to her serve taking the forehand to work coming out with a win. Svitolina began to show strength building to set the bar for the German. She made good on the mission to match Svitolina but the Ukrainian had the power to attack in search of a break.
There were none to be seen as the fight for the set would be down to the stronger server. Svitolina continued to stay out front giving everything to Goerges but her search for a break was difficult. A chance in the tenth came into play where the German was under pressure to stay alive in the set. She got into a deuce draw with Svitolina that lasted three breaks before Goerges landed the victory with a winner against the fifth seed.
They both went the distance in the set with a five all tie but in the critical moments, it was the German who dominated the Ukrainian to take the set from her ending 50 minutes of play. Goerges’ second seed was the best between the two; winning 72 percent while doing work to downgrade her opponent’s. It played roughly with her returns that also suffered greatly to lose her first set since the quarterfinals in Toronto.
The second set didn’t get any easier as Svitolina battled to keep the lead in the set but Goerges was there to match the fifth seed. They went along the pace through six games with the German built a good platform from her first set hold to keep the difficulty high on her end. Svitolina remained firm on the offensive end of her game but playing Goerges was harder than she imagined leading to her struggle to break the German down.
The game changer for Goerges arrived in the ninth as she fought for every point breaking down the Ukrainian on serve to lead 5-4 serving for the match. She made it look easy reaching two match points in the tenth where an eight-shot rally concluded with Svitolina returning a fly ball out of the court to end her run-in Cincinnati. It was a 1 hour and 38-minute victory for the unranked star who would await the winner between Sloane Stephens and Ekaterina Makarova in her second double header.
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