game allowed her to walk away with a straight sets win at the US Open. The tenth seed made her way into the third round with a 7-5, 6-2 win on Court 17 at the Billy Jean King National Tennis Center. It was the seventh time Radwanska made the third round and a comfortable win to continue on.
Both haven’t face one another in three years and their meeting at the Australian Open went to three sets with Radwanska holding the Kazak off in the third. Radwanska didn’t have a clean win over Petra Martic Wednesday as the second set got to a tiebreaker where the world number ten surpassed the Croatian winning 7-3. While her game needed tweaking, the Polish star knew the importance of defending the second serve and dealing out forceful play against Putintseva.
A surprising start for the number 10 seed occurred with her unable to win many points. Of the first ten to be won, Putintseva was eight of them which gave her a 2-0 lead. When it looked as if Radwanska wouldn’t get her game together, the Polish star struck back and put together a triple break in the fourth. The Kazak got back on track to end Radwanska’s comeback, taking back the lead at 3-2 in hopes that she hadn’t let her opponent back in. She couldn’t follow up the break in the sixth that evened the score once again.
It was turning into a tug of war for the advantage as Radwanska got it back after the seventh making it very even on what the next move in the match would be, and who would make it. They ran the next three games leveling at five all with some controversy going against Putintseva. She was left with no choice but to play on as Radwanska gained the advantage on deuce to take a 6-5 stance. The effort she had to put in the 12th was very hard against the 22-year-old as they went the distance on deuce before the tenth seed finished off the set with a winner ending 1 hour and eight minutes that it took to finish the set.
The Polish star kept up a winning streak that extended to four games which in turn frustrated Putintseva. Her racket smash after the second helped her reflect it into her offense that gave her a victory on the break. Radwanska went back to work extending the margin between herself and Putintseva that added other concerns for the 22-year-old. At the conclusion of the sixth game, she called out the trainer to examine her lower back which bothered her to the point of her losing games.
It was a lot of lost ground for the Kazak as Radwanska earned first honors to play for the math in the eighth with Putintseva well under pressure. She produced unforced errors in the final game that Radwanska stood to see her victory come on triple break point that went into the net ending 1 hour and 45 minutes.
“I’m very happy that I finally closed out that first set which was the key in the match and a long one and then in the second tried to be more aggressive and focus on my serve,” Radwanska said after her match. She’ll the winner between American Coco Vandeweghe and Ons Jabeur on Saturday.
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