British No 1 Katie Boulter battles from a set down to beat China’s Wang Yafan 5-7 6-1 6-4 and reach third round of US Open for the first time
British No. 1 Katie Boulter battles from a set down to defeat China’s Wang Yafan to reach the third round of the US Open for the first time, while Jodie Burrage is beaten by No. 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka
- Katie Boulter is through to the third round of the US Open for the first time after the victory
- The British number 1 put in a brave performance and beat the in shape Wang Yafan
- Jodie Burrage lost 6-3 6-2 to the number two seed, Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus
Katie Boulter comes from a village in Leicestershire, but has never felt more at home in the bustling metropolis of New York.
“I’m absolutely having a good time here,” declared the British number one after reaching the third round of the US Open by recording an early win on another busy day for the British contingent at Flushing Meadows.
Facing Chinese qualifier Wang Yafan, she was tense early on before coming back to win 5-7 6-1 6-4 in two hours 21 minutes during rush hour on the outside courts.
Knowing that the world No. 114 presented her with an excellent opportunity to consolidate her performance on the grass this summer, she was initially tense, rejecting three set points at 5-4 in the opener before bringing her bigger shot into a tense situation . denouement.
With Emma Raducanu absent, she was the last British woman left in the singles main draw by mid-afternoon, with Jodie Burrage losing 6-3 6-2 to the number two seed, Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus.
Katie Boulter is through to the third round of the US Open for the first time after Thursday’s victory
The British No. 1 put in a brave performance, beating the on-form Wang Yafan 5-7 6-1 6-4
“I’m super happy with today, very proud of myself and I had to dig very deep for that,” said Boulter. “I had those set points in the first and failed to convert and she played good tennis and I had to fight. She doesn’t make it easy for you.
“I was happy with my resilience. Tactically I tried to be very aggressive and I got a bit tight in the first set but I managed to bounce back and loosen up after that. The atmosphere was great today and the crowd helped me win.’
This is now the second consecutive Grand Slam in which Boulter has reached the third round, and it is symbolic of her progress that this compares to being knocked out in the second qualifying round in the first two rounds this year.
There is now a chance for her to make it to week two as her next opponent will be Peyton Stearns, the 21-year-old American who is currently one place above her at 59th in the world. Boulter is guaranteed to be on the cusp of the top fifty after this and will cement her place within that group if she can take the win.
The Chinese player had a run of 11 wins in a row, the kind of player who could always deliver quite a test with her deft coverage of the baseline and consistent groundstrokes.
The feeling at Boulter is that significantly better things will happen in the future
Meanwhile, Jodie Burrage lost 6-3 6-2 to the number two seed, Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus
It didn’t begin to get to Boulter until late in the first set, to the point where she lived precariously with an unusually petulant loss of temper.
In the ninth game, she swept at a ball while facing the stands behind the baseline and hit it upward. No great malice was intended, but she was lucky that it ended up in the camera portal, where the crowd sat on either side. If the ball had touched a spectator, she could have faced an omission, rather than the foul of the ball misuse code being issued.
Boulter’s serve improved in the second set, but the decider could have gone either way and she conceded two break points at 4–4. After a 5-4 break, she stepped forward, but got two double faults and some wild forehands in a last game tangle. In the end, she managed to open the field and use a forehand that is very much at home in the higher echelons of the game.
She won just minutes after Jack Draper went through the complex. The feeling with both is that significantly better things are coming.
The same could be said, albeit to a lesser extent, of Burrage, who was predictably outmatched by the mighty Australian Open champion at the massive Louis Armstrong Stadium.
Facing the highest ranked player she has ever played, she was not overwhelmed and held on well to make him respectably competitive. Like her first round co-winner, Lily Miyazaki, this week will have been a valuable learning experience, and she’s shown enough to suggest she’ll be able to get into more Grand Slam main draws without a wildcard is needed.