Johanna Konta admits she simply ran out of steam at the US Open after her shock defeat to Latvia’s Anastasija Sevastova.
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At times the emotional Latvian seemed on the verge of tears but after spurning some early match points, she held it together to book a last eight clash with a resurgent Caroline Wozniacki with a 6-4, 7-5 scoreline.
As in her second-round upset of third-seeded Garbine Muguruza, Sevastova wobbled under the pressure at first, failing to serve out the match.
“My opponent played an overall more solid match than I did”, Konta said. She lost in the second round at New Haven and in qualifying in Cincinnati. Sevastova rebounded though and was able to take the next two games to advance to the last eight. “She didn’t give me too much, and what she did I felt, you know, I didn’t do the best job of capitalizing on”.
The 26-year-old Latvian returned to the tour in 2015 having retired due to a string of injury problems in the past but having only made the last 16 of a Grand Slam once before in her career, she went one better with her win over Konta setting up a first ever major quarter-final.
“I was injured on and off, it was tough to play, it was not any fun and kind of depressing”.
After a messy opener, the early signs were that the second set would not be high quality either, with Sevastova pulling out a scrappy hold to start with; iIt was Sevastova who was striking the ball better, hitting a forehand victor to go 15-40 up on Konta’s serve. But as in that victory over the French Open champ, she finally closed out the win with a service break.
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.
“I didn’t play the tennis level that I would have liked but I competed the best I could”. Perhaps a Knicks cap or one for the Mets – the baseball team that plays across the street from the U.S. Open – might have been a more obvious choice, but Sevastova is sticking with the navy and white of the Yankees.
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“Sometimes”, Pouille said of the raucous crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium, “I couldn’t even hear myself when I was saying, ‘Allez!”
