New York | Swiatek swats Shibahara, as Rybakina and Pliskova withdraw

Overcast skies marked a turn for the better in the weather in New York, and World No 1 Iga Swiatek was at her clinical best dispatching qualifier Ena Shibahara with the loss of just 1 game at the US Open on Friday, advancing to the 3rd round alongside Jasmine Paolini and Jessica Pegula, but Elena Rybakina and Karolina Pliskova both withdrew from contention, while Mirra Andreeva met her match, and fell in straight sets.

I just wanted to focus on technicalities, and what I practiced yesterday on, and trying to convert it to my match. Sometimes, when the match goes pretty quick, your mind can drift off, and you feel too safe. I was just trying to stay in the zone, and it didn’t matter to me If she was 3-0 or 6-0, it doesn’t really matter. I just want to play, and keep playing the same way. Iga Swiatek

Swiatek made swift work of Japan’s Shibahara, 6-0 6-1, in 65 minutes, having survived a scare in the 1st-round when she committed 41 unforced errors before sealing a hard-fought win over Russian Kamilla Rakhimova.

Against Shibahara, she made just 6 miscues, and won all but 7 of the 31 points played in the 23-minute first set, including 5 winners and 2 aces.

“I’m playing, you know, not overpowering [tennis], but trying to be really solid, and picking the right shots, and being proactive,” Swiatek said in her on-court interview. “I’m happy with everything.

“I just felt the rhythm much better. I was a bit tense in my last match, so, today, I just wanted to focus on the right things, and focus on myself.”

The Pole served with real accuracy in the first set, winning 89% of points on her first serve and converting 3 out of 4 break point opportunities to race into the lead against a frustrated Shibahara, who had no answers.

Ranked outside the Top 200 and playing in her first singles Grand Slam main draw, Shibahara, a doubles specialist who has been ranked as high as No 4 in the world, tried to turn things around in the second set and defended 3 break points in a marathon service game to hold for 1-1, avoiding the dreaded ‘double bagel’.

That was the extent of her resistance, though, as the 23-year old Pole won the next 5 games in a row to swat the Japanese aside and clinch a clinical win.

“I just wanted to focus on technicalities, and what I practiced yesterday on, and trying to convert it to my match,” she continued. “Sometimes, when the match goes pretty quick, your mind can drift off, and you feel too safe.

“I was just trying to stay in the zone, and it didn’t matter to me If she was 3-0 or 6-0, it doesn’t really matter. I just want to play, and keep playing the same way.”

Swiatek, who won the 3rd of her 5 Grand Slams at Flushing Meadows in 2022, is next in action in a 3rd-round encounter with Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the No 25 seed, who found her way past Italy’s Elisabetta Cocciaretto, 5-7 6-1 6-2.

© Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images

After her match, Swiatek called for tennis’ governing bodies to provide players with more tools to combat online abuse after Caroline Garcia wrote about the hateful messages she has received on social media following recent losses.

The French Open partnered in 2022 with a company that uses artificial intelligence to filter players’ social media accounts, and the organisations that run the US Open, Wimbledon, the women’s tour and the lower-level ITF Tour announced in December that they were starting a service to monitor for ‘abusive and threatening content’ on X, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok.

“It would be nice if we can do more as [Garcia] did and try to educate people,” Swiatek told reporters. “Also maybe in the future, have some solutions, such as using AI to make it safer for us. I feel like we can’t be on the internet and feel safe anymore. You have to really be careful on what you’re reading, who you’re following. I know that there are some tools that, for example, Roland Garros offered for us.

“This app that we can have on the phone, and it’s going to block the hateful messages. It’s also going to learn with you when you’re going to tag some messages as hateful. It would be nice if we had more opportunities to use these kind of tools.”

Swiatek also repeated that the tennis tours are ignoring players’ mental health and physical well-being, adding that players ‘want to at least be in the loop’ when decisions are made over scheduling and player commitment.

Jasmine Paolini, the 5th seed, advanced to round 3 after playing just 3 points against Karolina Pliskova (R), who injured her foot and retired from the match

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Jasmine Paolini, the 5th seed, also from Italy, advanced when Czech Karolina Pliskova retired after just 3 points with a foot injury, while, also on Thursday, World No 4 Elena Rybakina from Kazakhstan withdrew ahead of her 2nd-round match, citing injury.

The score between Pliskova and Paolini was 15-all, with the Italian serving, when the Czech twisted awkwardly on her left foot while trying to change directions during a point that she lost.

Pliskova headed to her chair and asked for the trainer, removing both of her shoes and taking off her left sock, and, after being examined, she said she could not continue competing and limped off the court at Louis Armstrong Stadium.

“I think it is so sad,” said the Italian. “It is bad to leave the court like that. I don’t know what to say. I didn’t play a match. It is not good for tennis. I hope she recovers and we see her back on court soon.”

This is the 4th retirement on the women’s side so far this tournament, tying the most in a single US Open, in 2011, in the Open era.

Paolini moves on to face notorious giant-killer Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan, who was a 6-1 7-6(4) winner over China’s Wang Xinyu.

Rybakina withdrew ahead of her match of her late match, sending Jessika Ponchet from France into round 3 where she will meet Denmark’s former World No 1 Caroline Wozniacki.

“Unfortunately, I have to withdraw from my match today due to my injuries,” Rybakina, who parted ways with longtime coach Stefano Vukov ahead of the US Open, said in a statement. “I did not want to finish the last Grand Slam of the year this way but I have to listen to my body, and I hope I can close out the remainder of the year strong.”

Rybakina has struggled to stay healthy, most recently withdrawing from the Olympics and Toronto with acute bronchitis, while earlier in the season, she withdrew from the events in Dubai, Indian Wells and Rome with illness, and retired from her quarter-final match in Berlin with abdominal pain. She also pulled out of Eastbourne due to a change in schedule.

The Kazakh’s absence opens the draw up nicely for title favourite Swiatek.

Jessica Pegula came from a break down in both sets to beat Sofia Kenin on Day 4 of the US Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York

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American Jessica Pegula, the No 6 seed, took care of Sofia Kenin, the 2020 Australian Open champion, 7-6(4) 6-3, and has now won 14 tour-level matches on US soil this season, the second most on the WTA Tour after Danielle Collins.

Pegula had to rally back, though, after dropping serve in the second game of the match, and the 30-year-old also started the second down 0-2, but rattled off 5 straight games to slam the door, and remains a perfect 11-0 against American opponents this year.

“I thought I served pretty well in the moments that I had to,” Pegula said. “I knew I had chances to break but, I mean, she’s really tough. She’s a good returner and, when she’s hitting her shots and getting really good depth, that makes it really hard.”

Pegula, who has never progressed beyond the quarter-finals at a major, will next face Spain’s Jessica Bouzas Maneiro, who upset British No 1 Katie Boulter, the 31st seed, 7-5 7-5, earlier in the day.

America’s Ashlyn Krueger upset 17-year old Mirra Andreeva, the No 21 seed from Russia, 6-1 6-4, on the Grandstand in an impressive display of power and control.

From the start, Andreeva could not command her shots, and let the first game slip away with 3 consecutive forehand unforced errors, setting the tone for the match.

Although she managed to break back, she couldn’t find her rhythm as Krueger rolled on to pocket the set with a forehand winner after just 20 minutes.

The American’s serve made the difference early on, as she won 13 of 15 points on her first delivery in the opening set, while she committed just 4 unforced errors, but, in the second, Andreeva turned up the heat as they traded breaks on their way to 5-4, before the Russian then let the rest of the match slip away, filling the final game with errors.

Ultimately, Krueger won an impressive 77% of her first serve points, and clocked an 80% net approach win percentage.

“To be in the third round at my home Grand Slam is a dream,” she said after scoring her 5th win over a WTA Top 25 player this season.

Krueger advances to meet Liudmila Samsonova, the 16th seed, after the Russian battled past Czech Marie Bouzkova, 3-6 7-6(1) 6-3.

15th seed Anna Kalinskaya saw off Anna Bondar in straight sets at Flushing Meadows on Thursday

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In other early results from Thursday:

• Former NC State standout Diana Shnaider, the No 18 seed from Russia, defeated Denmark’s Clara Tauson, 6-4 6-4, to advance to the 3rd-round for a second straight major, and she will meet Italian veteran Sara Errani, who ended American Caroline Dolehide’s US Open singles aspirations in a tight 7-5 7-5 tussle; and
• No 15 seed Anna Kalinskaya, also from Russia, beat Hungarian Anna Bondar, 6-2 6-4, to set up a contest with Beatriz Haddad Maia, the Brazilian No 22 seed, who kept her US Open hopes alive with an impressive 6-2 6-1 win over Spain’s Sara Sorribes Tormo.