Darya Kasatkina’s comeback in Abu Dhabi: the 1st racket of Russia, after five failed sets in the season, won the “steering wheel”

What is Kasatkina doing! After five failed sets, she won a strong-willed victory with the “steering wheel”

The first racket of Russia was finally able to break the black streak.

February 9 at the WTA tournament in Abu Dhabi ends the second round matches. Russian Daria Kasatkina, seeded under the first number, took part in one of the meetings. Her opponent was the 28th racket of the world Gil Belen Teichman from Switzerland. The latest results of Kasatkina left much to be desired. Suffice it to say that Daria approached the tournament, having failed the last four sets. In the final of the second tournament in Adelaide, the eighth racket of the world defeated Swiss Belinda Bencic (0:6, 2:6), and in the first round of the Australian Open suffered an even more crushing defeat (1:6, 1:6) from compatriot Varvara Gracheva, who occupies a place near the end of the top hundred of the WTA rankings.

What was said about the sensational defeat of Kasatkina from Gracheva? “Maybe she has some kind of injury … Maybe she doesn’t feel well. I just can’t find any other explanation, ”said Anna Dmitrieva, 18-time USSR tennis champion and now commentator, in an interview with Championship. Andrey Olkhovsky, the winner of two Grand Slam tournaments in mixed doubles, spoke in a similar vein. “It is difficult to explain how you can lose with such a score when you are the eighth racket of the world. Probably, it was either some kind of injury or physical ailment. I have no idea, but for me such a score is simply inexplicable. This is a real surprise for me!” – said Olkhovsky in an interview with “Championship”.

Kasatkina herself wrote this then in her telegram channel: “I lost a mental battle to myself, while I waited for my match for two days due to constant transfers. The schedule and circumstances are clearly not in my favor, but there is always something to learn. Indeed, in the early days of the Australian Open, matches had to be postponed due to rain, and tennis players did not always clearly understand where and when they would play. One of the athletes whose matches the organizers postponed was Daria.

At the beginning of the reporting match, Kasatkina’s nightmare continued. The Russian woman actually gave the opponent the first game without a fight – 1:6. And there have already been five such failed sets in a row, starting with the Adelaide final! In the second game, the athletes seemed to exchange roles: Daria did not allow her opponent to do anything and hung her “steering wheel” – 6:0! At the beginning of the third installment, the tennis players began to give each other their pitch, but soon Kasatkina put an end to this and brought the matter to victory. The final score is 1:6, 6:0, 6:2 in favor of the Russians.

Also at the tournament in Abu Dhabi are Russians Veronika Kudermetova and Lyudmila Samsonova, seeded fourth and eighth, respectively. Kudermetova, like Kasatkina, did not play in the first round, and in the second she beat the Belgian Elise Mertens – the same Mertens with whom she won the WTA Final Tournament – 2022 in a pair. Samsonova defeated the American Claire Liu in the first round, and in the second – 2021 Roland Garros champion Barbora Kreichikova. Veronica and Lyudmila will play each other in the quarterfinals, while Kasatkina will face China’s Zheng Qinwen. The quarter-finals will take place on February 10, the semi-finals on February 11, and the final on February 12.