The British No 1, seeded 13th at Flushing Meadows, had been eyeing a repeat of the Australian Open when she reached the semi final but Konta’s serve – her biggest weapon – deserted her as she went down 6-4, 7-5.
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Sevastova, who also beat third seed Garbine Muguruza in the second round in NY, overcame nerves and a late fightback from Konta to win, despite missing a match point at both 5-3 and 5-4 in the second set.
As in her second-round upset of third-seeded Garbine Muguruza, Sevastova struggled to serve out the match.
“Now I have a photo”, said Sevastova, who next plays the two-time former runner-up, Caroline Wozniacki, a 6-3 6-4 victor over American eighth seed Madison Keys.
Konta lost her serve seven times, holding only four times, and had a 34:26 unforced error to victor ratio – having made just six errors against Belinda Bencic in the third round.
“I think I’m playing better in my second career right now”.
Once again the Latvian fell behind in her service game, though some more slices, and some big serving and a booming forehand victor at 40-30, saw her come from 15-30 down to take a 3-0 lead in the opening stages. “My opponent played, I think, an overall more solid match than I did”.
“I needed to be a little bit more offensive and she did a good job of neutralising my serve and she read the game really well”. “From now on we’re going to start improving on things”, she said. Sevastova has won eight of her last nine matches on hard court.
“I didn’t play the tennis level that I would have liked but I competed the best I could”. Sevastova, who returned to competition a year ago after retiring in 2013 following a succession of injuries, had never gone beyond the second round in her three previous visits to Flushing Meadows, the last of which was in 2011.
“I felt I did that, and unfortunately it wasn’t enough to play the kind of tennis I wanted to play”.
“I still can not believe it”, she said.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I don’t know if we have A list celebrities”.
It was an uncharacteristic slew of poor serving and errors from the Brit, which saw her struggle to find her range while Sevastova eased her way into a 3-0 lead. I didn’t take the opportunities she gave me.
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The loss may hurt but no damage has been done.This match will be one to forget as quickly as she can.It has been a long, hard year for Konta and the Open is her 20th event in nine months, so she can be forgiven for being a bit tired and jaded. At the beginning of the tournament I didn’t expect quarterfinal, because also my body wasn’t so good.
