Elina
Svitolina kept her focus in check to march on at the Rogers Cup
Thursday afternoon. The world number five kept her back to back championship
hopes alive by answering the problems of Johanna
Konta who couldn’t get the momentum needed in her straight sets loss
6-3, 6-4 on Court Nine on the grounds of IGA Stadium. The 2017 champion
delivered big hits, focus and aggression to stay alive reaching the
quarterfinals for a second straight year.
The Ukrainian got a pass into the third round she didn’t see
coming with Mihaela Buzarnescu suffering an injury during their match on
Wednesday. With the advancement she faced the Brit for a fourth time and the
first since Brisbane. With two wins against her on hard courts, the Ukrainian
would have an advantage of getting the upper hand again as Konta was in her
second match in a day. While she didn’t put much effort playing to win against
Victoria Azarenka, adjusting to the change would be important for her to stay
high on her offense.
She followed Svitolina who made good to hold her opening
service game to set the pace. The Ukrainian did more to up the ante with Konta
who again struggled on serve from the previous match. Svitolina pressed the
rallies to her advantage taking the break in the fourth with two games between
herself and the Brit. It was soon 4-1 to the world number five causing Konta to
take a chat with coach Michael Joyce who told her to come forward on
Svitolina's return and earn points that way.
She instead relied on her serve to do the work playing
behind the baseline to get a second game under her belt. It was still an uphill
battle that she endured as the errors began to rattle her enough giving
Svitolina the 5-2 lead. She started to get the serve back in the right direction
firing off three shots that set up a chance to blank the Ukrainian for once.
Svitolina denied her with a great return winner on the line but watched the
Brit score an ace to get out of trouble.
The 23 year old served for the set in the ninth where she
put her best together giving very little to Konta to capture the set in 35
minutes. Svitolina had a better run of her service game where she hit 14 of 17
despite serving 54 percent from the first serve. The consistency of her game
was enough to keep Konta from gaining any further momentum.
She couldn’t stop the Brit from scoring on her serve to
start the second set and got in trouble with her second double fault of the
match on serve at deuce. She recovered quickly with a winner putting it away
with a missed forehand from Konta. She was broken a double fault that came to
give last year's champion three break points getting it on a big forehand back
to the Brit.
Despite being in a hole, Konta showed a slight improvement
by the fifth where she kept in touch with Svitolina whose lead remained a game.
After winning her serve, the Ukrainian took a conference with Andrew Bettles
who told her how to deal with the change and get back to dictating the set. Konta
was the one who dictated the pace after the third taking three games in a row
from the Ukrainian who had a 4-2 grip on the set. It came to a close ending the
Brit's winning streak with a serve to love in the seventh.
Konta evened the score to make earning the fifth game huge
for either one. Konta got out of trouble in the nine committing two double
faults on serve giving Svitolina a chance on deuce. It didn’t come easy for the
23 year old but after a few breaks, she was the one taking the step up to serve
for the match. The Ukrainian put all the aggression she had left in the match
to create three chances to get it but only needed one with Konta returning into
the net to end her run in 1 hour and 25 minutes. The first serve remained solid
scoring on 72 percent from the first serve.
With a great performance in the record books, the Ukrainian
would prepare her quarterfinal match on Friday to determine if she can continue
defending last year's title.
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