Elina Svitolina had a solid service run that gave her a comfortable win at the Western & Southern Open Friday afternoon. The fifth seed struck at the right times to take down young Amanda Anisimova in straight sets with a 6-4, 6-4 win on Court 10 at the Lindner Family Tennis Center. It was the first time since 2015 that she returned to the quarterfinals in hopes to write a new chapter in Ohio.
This marked the first meeting between the two who were on different sides of the spectrum in their careers. The Ukrainian found herself dropping two in the WTA rankings this week with her failing to secure a second straight title in Montreal. She found herself in a good position to make up for it standing as one of the few contenders left to make it to Sunday’s final where her winning could move her back or further up the ladder. Anisimova was impressive in another victory Thursday getting a win over higher ranked Petra Martic in the second round. With this standing as her biggest challenge in months, the American would try to keep her first year in Cincinnati running.
The 16-year-old made her presence known to Svitolina who served but struggled against the hard returns. The Ukrainian was lucky enough to get the victory on a wide landing but soon faced Anisimova’s well-placed shots. She landed a winner followed by back to back aces that easily completed her opening service game. Svitolina answered with a stronger service hold in the third that she was pleased to achieve knowing the response she was going to receive from her young opponent.
She kept with the fifth seed through six games with each holding their own ends of the game. When Svitolina captured the seventh, she called for coach Andrew Bettles to help her figure out how to counter and create break chances as they got closer to a conclusion of the set itself. She couldn’t get one done in the eighth but recorded her first serve to love to take the pivotal 5-4 lead with Anisimova serving to stay alive.
The pressure finally got into the head of the young American who gave Svitolina enough room to take off with the lead and bring the set to an end in 33 minutes. The Ukrainian won 14 of 16 points from the first serve and six of nine from the second indicating her strength on serve. Anisimova also had a strong first serve percentage but her second serve let her down just enough to be a set down.
She tried to keep Svitolina in reach after getting behind again on serve but rallied to force deuce and contain the second in her favor. They once again remained deadlocked through the next few games with Anisimova showing her power to compete against the fifth seed and keep her game alive to find that moment where she could take Svitolina down on serve. The Ukrainian refused to do that in the seventh taking her hold before calling for a conference with Bettles on how to counter with the match nearly in Svitolina’s grasp.
She got into trouble in the ninth where Anisimova made some big hits in the rallies to stay level. The 16-year-old had a break chance but watched Svitolina extinguish it briefly to force deuce. A mistake on the forehand gave Svitolina AD point which she won on another forehand error landing long of the baseline. Anisimova was again on the edge of defeat needing a strong serve to avoid the match from ending on her watch. Just like the end of the first set, the young American could not hold it together as the nerves arrived just in time to give the fifth seed the right moment to strike out a victory that got her into the quarterfinals after 1 hour and 10 minutes.
Svitolina held the first serve firmly at 81 percent with the second serve not far behind landing 16 of 21. While the returns weren’t very high due to Anisimova’s fight, she earned a quick victory but wouldn’t get much time to rest. She awaited the winner between Kiki Bertens and Anett Kontaveit who she would face in the next round later today.
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