Thursday, August 31, 2023 – 10:35 am
New York, August 31, 2020 / WAM / Big surprises imposed themselves strongly on the start of the second round of the US Open (Flushing Meadows) tennis tournament, the last of the four major “Grand Slam” tournaments in the current season, with the exit of more than one prominent seed in the tournament early.
Norwegian Casper Rudd and Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, ranked fifth and seventh, topped the list of the most prominent stars who were knocked out of the tournament from the second round, Thursday morning (UAE time).
Ruud, who reached the tournament final last season, lost to Chinese player Chen Zhenzhang 4-6, 7-5, 2-6, 6-0, 2-6 in a match that lasted 3 hours and 18 minutes, making it a historic victory for the 26-year-old Chinese player Zhang. 67 worldwide.
“Last year, the championship was knocked out in the first round, it was a bad memory, but the situation this season has become different,” Zhang said after qualifying for the third round.
And if Zhang succeeds in reaching the fourth round in the current tournament, he will have the opportunity to become the first Chinese player to climb to the top 50 in the world rankings.
And young Swiss Dominic Stricker, 21, achieved a big surprise in this tournament, which he is playing for the first time, by defeating Tsitsipas 7-5, 6-7, 6-7, 7-6, 6-3 in a match that lasted 4 hours and 10 minutes.
Stricker achieved his first ever victory against a player ranked in the top ten in the world.
Stricker said: “I played the match very well, and I felt fine since the first set in the match.
In another surprise in the second round of the tournament, Austrian Dominic Thiem bid farewell to this version early by withdrawing in the middle of the second set of the match due to injury, noting that he lost the first set 6-7 against the American Ben Shelton, who qualified for the third round.
Far from surprises, the veteran Serbian Novak Djokovic, the second seed of the tournament, continued his successful start and qualified for the third round with a huge victory 6-4, 6-1, 6-1 over Spaniard Bernabe Miralles in another match in the second round of the tournament.
The women’s competition was not without surprises. The most prominent of which was the loss of the Belarusian Victoria Azarenka, the 18th seed, to the Chinese Lin Zhuo 3-6, 3-6, while Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, the fourth seed of the tournament, called off this version of the second round by withdrawing from her Australian opponent, Ayla Tomjanovic.
On the other hand, Polish world number one Iga Schwatek continued the journey to successfully defend the title. Where she defeated Australian Daria Gavrilova 6-3 6-4 and qualified for the third round well.
Dina Omar / Ahmed Zahran
2023-08-31 06:36:20
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