Elina Svitolina didn’t have the answers to advance at the Dubai Duty-Free Tennis Championship Wednesday. The former two-time winner of the tournament was bested by Jill Teichmann, who conducted a bit of dominance against the tenth seed, winning 7-6, 6-2 on centre court at the Aviation Tennis Club.
The two met twice on the clay courts, splitting wins at Strasbourg and Madrid in consecutive years. On the hard courts, both have had ups and downs this season, needing a positive change to continue for one of them. Svitolina was back in her happy place and dealt with Mayar Sherif in straight sets. The Swiss star pulled off a big defeat of Elise Mertens, winning 6-2, 6-4. Though she had a win against the tenth seed, getting one on the hard courts was another task to accomplish.
The Swiss star got the match started with a hold of serve followed by Svitolina, who matched Teichmann. The two continued holds of serve through eight games, with no signs of struggle. The Swiss continued her strength of holding serve to take the important 5-4 lead on Svitolina. The hope for a break in the tenth didn’t come as the Ukrainian controlled a majority of her service until a mistake at 40-15 brought Teichmann closer.
Another error forced deuce for the 24-year-old, who miss-hit the forehand, bringing up an AD point for Svitolina. She was denied on her first but gained three more with her consistency to make it five-all. Teichmann was done having Svitolina on her tail and made a statement in the 11th with a serve to love. The Ukrainian didn’t have it easy in the 12th as she committed her fourth double fault but got out of trouble to force the pivotal tie-break.
Svitolina faced the danger of blowing her consistency when Teichmann broke her for the minibreak and took off with the next five points. Sitting at 6-0, the 24-year-old blanked the tenth seed to walk off with the first set in 56 minutes. The Swiss notched nine winners and had a seven-point streak to be proud of against Svitolina, whose first-serve percentage took a hard hit from the double faults.
She got into focus to regroup, doing so with a hold to start the second set. When it looked possible to notch a break in tow, her returns landed long of the baseline too many times. It led Teichmann to hold serve and send the problems right back in the third. She had break points in place, but errors got Svitolina to deuce on serve. The 27-year-old saved four breakpoints in a row, but the fifth went bad, leading to a break.
Teichmann consolidated the break for a 3-1 stand against Svitolina, who couldn’t find an answer to countering her opponent. The Swiss had the double break in hand and coasted to victory back on serve to sit a game down of the match. The Ukrainian tried a last-ditch effort to bring her game together and extend the set further beyond her service. Long returns from Teichmann helped her clinch the service, but the ball went back into the hands of the Swiss to end it.
Despite putting in the effort on deuce, the Swiss player let the Ukrainian create her own problems and earn the victory that clinched an upset in 1 hour and 44 minutes.
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