Elina Svitolina avoids lenghty battle to fight on at Australian Open.

 

Elina Svitolina celebrates after defeating Fiona Ferro in the opening round of the Australian Open. 

Elina Svitolina powered hard early but had to fight to finish her opening round of the Australian Open Monday. Fiona Ferro became feisty on the court during the second set that went to a tiebreak but saw the Ukrainian take it 6-1, 7-6(4) on Margaret Court Arena at Melbourne Park. It was the 27^th first-round win for Svitolina out of 28 appearances in Grand Slam tournaments. 

The Ukrainian came into the first slam of 2022 without a victory under her belt. The 15^th seed did have a win from last year in Chicago against Ferro, but her performance at Adelaide didn’t leave a large amount of confidence. With no victory yet from the Ukrainian, she needed to be sure to conduct well on the courts of Melbourne or suffer a tragic fate in the shape of an upset. 

The 15^th seed came out well with a counterattack of Ferro’s service. After forcing deuce, she managed to gain two AD point chances and close out the break in four minutes. It was easy pickings for the Ukrainian, who went on to back up the break in the second. Svitolina made it 3-0 allowing Ferro just one point before achieving the double break. The 27-year-old backed up another service game to comfortably sit ahead of the French player. 

Ferro struck out a victory for herself in the fifth gaining cheers from the crowd, but as Svitolina went back on serve, she pressed the issue to get back into control. A good hold for the Ukrainian put Ferro in a tight spot as she had to avoid letting the set seal up. Errors from Svitolina in the seventh game put her up 40-0 only to see the free points fade away. The Ukrainian fought hard to force deuce but blew two set points into the net. Ferro switched the tide for her AD point chance only to see it go off the post. 

Svitolina knew she had to make the next AD point hers for the takin and did so on a line drive winner for the set in 31 minutes. The 27-year-old had nine winners and kept her errors low to remain the strong player on the court. The Ukrainian opened service to begin the second set where she nearly had a shutout of the 24-year-old but kept her back enough. The opportunity for a break went south as Ferro brought out an offense while serving to hold the second. She continued to hold from her end to match Svitolina. 

After eight games, it remained even between the two players with Svitolina looking to advance on her skill. Ferro was there to make it hard in the ninth as she answered the shots that the 15^th seed hit over. After four breaks of deuce where Ferro had the control, she placed a winner far out of reach of Svitolina to gain the break and a 5-4 stand. When things looked good for the French star, she let up just enough to see her hopes for a set win falter. 

Errors from Ferro opened the door for the 15^th seed to make it hers to win, scoring a crosscourt winner for a five-all tie. The Ukrainian wasn’t in a spot to mess around and fired off a quick service game in the 11^th to sit 6-5 on Ferro. The 24-year-old was not giving it to the Ukrainian and forced a tiebreak to decide whether she would move on. It was still a tight race to the coveted set point as Ferro gave Svitolina no room to wriggle away. It was a four-all tie until two critical points from the Ukrainian gave her match point and the winning error on Ferro to close out her day in 1 hour and 32 minutes. 

“I’m really happy with the match today,” said Svitolina during her on-court interview. “Coming into the tournament, I was training a lot but not getting a lot of matches, but in the end, I’m happy with the level I showed today.”