Kuznetsova back in winner’s circle in Istanbul

Published by Matt Trollope

Svetlana Kuznetsova; Getty Images
Svetlana Kuznetsova wins her first match in almost eight months in Istanbul, while teen sensation Marta Kostyuk stuns Alize Cornet to qualify and Daria Kasatkina is beaten in Stuttgart.

Svetlana Kuznetsova claimed her first win since late August at the 2017 US Open with a straight-sets victory over Wang Qiang at the WTA Istanbul Cup.

It snapped a six-match losing streak for the Russian, who was forced to undergo wrist surgery in November 2017 and miss the Australian Open.

Kuznetsova’s 6-3 6-3 win over China’s Wang sets up a second-round meeting with a qualifier – either Viktoriya Tomova or Valentyna Ivakhnenko – at the claycourt event.

“You can practise as much as you want, but nothing gets you better prepared like playing matches,” Kuznetsova told wtatennis.com.

“I’ve been practising a lot, but still when I came to the tour, I was not quite ready. I played Indian Wells but I felt like I was out of shape. Phyiscally, I was good, because I had trained, but I needed more matches.”

Kuznetsova lost her comeback match in Indian Wells as well as her opening matches in Miami and Lugano before breaking the drought in Istanbul.

Kostyuk qualifies in Stuttgart

Highly-rated 15-year-old Marta Kostyuk took another step in her rapid tennis development, stunning Alize Cornet to reach the main draw at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix.

Kostyuk’s 4-6 6-2 6-3 win over the world No.35 was her third qualifying victory in Stuttgart and follows a few months on from her third-round run at the Australian Open, where she was also a qualifier.

She lines up against German wildcard Antonia Lottner in the first round of the main draw.

In the one main-draw result on Sunday, Magdalena Rybarikova stunned in-form Russian Daria Kasatkina 6-2 6-2.

Tsitsipas flourishing on clay

Rising Greek star Stefanos Tsitsipas scored his fourth win in his last five matches on clay with a 6-4 6-1 demolition of French qualifier Corentin Moutet in Barcelona.

Tsitsipas, who qualified last week in Monte Carlo and advanced to the second round, will now take on No.7 seed Diego Schwartzman.

Also winning through to the second round of the ATP 500 event were Ivo Karlovic, Benoit Paire, Pablo Cuevas and Leonardo Mayer.

Share this: 
  • Most popular articles

14 August 2017

Sharapova quotes Serena: “I will never lose to that li...

Maria Sharapova has opened up in her memoir Unstoppable, revealing her take on how Serena ... More

22 September 2017

Tennis’ obscure traits and trends

In the heat and humidity of the recent US Open series, there was a slow-mo nod to a long-r... More

23 February 2016

The history of the most common words in tennis

Tennis is a funny old game. People love you one minute and then want to drop you the next;... More

27 August 2018

Rafael Nadal: The greatest teen in men’s tennis histor...

After Stefanos Tsitsipas became the youngest player to beat four top-10 players in a singl... More