Sakkari stops Gauff, 16, in Western & Southern Open

Maria Sakkari, playing in San Jose, Calif., last year, dismissed
Coco Gauff 6-1, 6-3 in the first round of the Western & South-
ern Open in Flushing Meadows, N.Y. Photo by Paul Bauman 

Maria Sakkari did Coco Gauff a big favor by withdrawing from the WTA tournament in Linz, Austria, last October. 

That allowed Gauff to advance to the main draw as a lucky loser, and she went on to win her first WTA title at age 15. 

Gauff was not as fortunate today. Now 16, she lost to the 25-year-old Greek 6-1, 6-3 in 65 minutes in the first round of the Western & Southern Open in Flushing Meadows, N.Y.

The tournament, normally held in the Cincinnati area, is being played at the site of the U.S. Open with no fans in attendance because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sakkari, seeded 13th at No. 21, won 84 percent of the points on her first serve (21 of 25) and saved the only break point against her.

It was Sakkari's second match since the WTA tour resumed after a hiatus of almost five months. She fell to 69th-ranked Kristyna Pliskova, the twin sister of No. 3 Karolina Pliskova, 6-4, 6-4 on clay in the first round in Palermo two weeks ago.

"I think I really played a good match," Sakkari, the runner-up in the inaugural Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic in San Jose, Calif., in 2018, said on-court after the match. "I played a match in Palermo, but for me, it doesn't count. It wasn't even a match (there), the way I played. Coming back the way I did, it's really important, and (I take) a lot of confidence from this." 

Sakkari is scheduled to play either No. 33 Yulia Putintseva or No. 36 Zhang Shuai on Monday. 

Former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka, who won the Bank of the West Classic at Stanford 10 years ago, dispatched 15th-seeded Donna Vekic, a semifinalist in San Jose last year, 6-2, 6-3. 

Azarenka, the Australian Open champion in 2012 and 2013, will face either wild card Sloane Stephens, a Fresno, Calif., product who won the 2017 U.S. Open, or Carolina Garcia of France. 

Amanda Anisimova, 18, ousted 11th-seeded Alison Riske 6-3, 6-3 in an all-American encounter. 

Anisimova, who won her first professional title in the 2017 Sacramento, Calif., Challenger at 15 and reached the French Open semifinals last year, will face another American in the second round on Monday. She will take on either Jennifer Brady, coming off her first WTA title last week in Lexington, Ky., or qualifier Jessica Pegula, the runner-up in the 2012 Sacramento Challenger at 18.

No. 16 seed Dayana Yastremska, ranked 25th at age 20, eliminated 40-year-old Venus Williams, who has won seven Grand Slam and two Bank of the West singles titles, 7-5, 2-6, 7-5.

On the first day of ATP Tour matches since March, winners included wild card Andy Murray and Milos Raonic, who combined to go 23-0 and win five singles titles in the now-defunct SAP Open in San Jose.

Murray, 33, defeated American wild card Frances Tiafoe, who won the 2016 Stockton (Calif.) Challenger, 7-6 (6), 3-6, 6-1. 

Murray, who captured the first of his three Grand Slam singles title in the 2012 U.S. Open, is playing in his first tournament of the year as he continues his comeback from hip operations in 2018 and 2019. He is set to play fifth-seeded Alexander Zverev of Germany on Monday.

The 6-foot-5 (1.96-meter) Raonic, who has struggled with injuries since reaching the 2016 Wimbledon final, hammered 19 aces in a 6-4, 6-4 victory over 6-foot-6 (1.98-meter) Sam Querrey, a 32-year-old San Francisco native.

Donna dominates Dutchwoman as WTA Tour resumes

Donna Vekic said she's "happy that I didn't forget
how to play tennis, how to play matches, how to
win." 2019 photo by Mal Taam

   In the first WTA or ATP main-draw match in almost five months, sixth-seeded Donna Vekic of Croatia dismantled Arantxa Rus of the Netherlands 6-1, 6-2 today on clay in the first round of the Palermo Ladies Open.

   Vekic, a quarterfinalist in the U.S. Open and semifinalist in San Jose, Calif., last year, broke Rus' serve six times and lost her serve once. 

   "I'm definitely a little bit surprised (at the score)," Vekic, 24, told reporters in a video call. "It was very tricky conditions. It was very windy, so the ball was a little bit all over the court. 

   "I'm just definitely happy that I didn't forget how to play tennis, how to play matches, how to win. It's a huge relief."

  Vekic, ranked No. 24, is scheduled to play Italy's Elisabetta Cocciaretto, a 19-year-old wild card ranked No. 157, on Wednesday. Cocciaretto upset veteran Polona Hercog of Slovenia 7-6 (1), 6-3.

   Top-seeded Petra Martic, a Croat ranked No. 15, is set to play qualifier Kaja Juvan of Slovenia on Tuesday. Second-ranked Simona Halep of Romania withdrew from the tournament last week because of concerns about traveling during the COVID-19 pandemic.

   The ATP Tour is scheduled to resume Aug. 22 with the Western & Southern Open, which moved from the Cincinnati area to Flushing Meadows, N.Y., for this year because of the pandemic. The U.S. Open is set to be played Aug. 31 to Sept. 13 in Flushing Meadows without fans in attendance.

Osaka follows Djokovic out the door in U.S. Open

   Less than 24 hours after world No. 1 and defending champion Novak Djokovic lost in the round of 16 at the U.S. Open, his female counterpart did the same.
   Naomi Osaka fell to 13th-seeded Belinda Bencic of Switzerland 7-5, 6-4 on Monday at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, N.Y.
   Since winning her second consecutive Grand Slam singles title in the Australian Open in January, the 21-year-old Osaka has failed to reach the quarterfinals of a major.
   Ashleigh Barty will rise one spot to regain the No. 1 ranking after the U.S. Open, Karolina Pliskova will improve one notch to No. 2, and Osaka will drop to No. 3.
   Bencic, 22, advanced to her second Grand Slam quarterfinal. The first came five years ago in the U.S. Open.
   A 5-foot-9 (1.75-meter) right-hander, Bencic climbed to a career-high No. 7 at age 18 in 2016 but underwent left-wrist surgery in the spring of 2017 and sat out for five months. She has fought back from No. 318 in September 2017 to No. 12 and will improve to at least No. 8 after the U.S. Open.

Donna Vekic, shown last month in San Jose, saved
a match point in her three-set victory over Julia
Goerges. Photo by Mal Taam

   Bencic is set to face 23rd-seeded Donna Vekic of Croatia on Wednesday. Vekic, a semifinalist in San Jose last month and first-time Grand Slam quarterfinalist, saved a match point in her 6-7 (5), 7-5, 6-3 victory over 26th-seeded Julia Goerges of Germany.
   Bencic is 2-1 against the 23-year-old Vekic, winning in straight sets on grass and a hard court in 2014 and losing 6-4, 6-1 in the third round of the French Open in June.
   In the other quarterfinal in the top half of the women's draw, 15th-seeded Bianca Andreescu of Canada will meet 25th-seeded Elise Mertens of Belgium for the first time.
   Andreescu, 19, stopped U.S. qualifier Taylor Townsend, who played for the now-defunct Sacramento Capitals of World TeamTennis six years ago at 17, 6-1, 4-6, 6-2. Mertens routed U.S. wild card Kristie Ahn 6-1, 6-1 in 66 minutes, avenging a loss to the 27-year-old Stanford graduate in the second round in San Jose.
   Ahn had never won a main-draw match in a Grand Slam tournament before last week. She was born two miles from the National Tennis Center at Flushing Hospital, lives in nearby Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and trains at the center.
   Ahn will soar 48 places to No. 93, cracking the top 100 for the first time, and add $280,000 to her career prize money of $548,241.
   In the men's quarterfinals in the bottom half of the draw on Wednesday, second seed and three-time U.S. Open champion Rafael Nadal will play 20th-seeded Diego Schwartzman of Argentina, and 13th-seeded Gael Monfils of France will meet 24th-seeded Matteo Berrettini of Italy for the first time.
   Nadal, 33, is 7-0 against the 5-foot-7 (1.70-meter) Schwartzman, 27.
   Meanwhile, 41-year-old twins Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan, both former Stanford stars, lost in the third round of a major for the third consecutive time. The seventh seeds and five-time U.S. Open champions fell to unseeded Jack Sock and Jackson Withrow 6-4, 7-5 in an all-American matchup.
   Sock and Mike Bryan won last year's U.S. Open while Bob Bryan was recovering from hip surgery.
   Also on Monday, fourth-seeded Latisha Chan of Chinese Taipei and Ivan Dodig of Croatia topped Raquel Atawo (Cal, 2001-04) of San Jose and Fabrice Martin of France 7-6 (3), 3-6 [10-3] in the mixed doubles quarterfinals.
   In the first round of boys singles, 16-year-old Aidan Mayo, who grew up in the Sacramento suburb of Roseville, surprised 12th-seeded Shunsuke Mitsui of Japan 6-4, 7-5.

Crafty Zheng, powerful Sabalenka reach San Jose final

   SAN JOSE, Calif. – With her crafty game, Zheng Saisai is quietly making a name for herself in Northern California.
   The unseeded Zheng reached her first Premier Level singles final today, beating seventh seed and 2018 runner-up Maria Sakkari 7-6 (5), 6-2 in the second annual Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic at San Jose State.
   Zheng, 25, of China also played in the doubles semifinals. Top-seeded Nicole Melichar, a Czech-born American, and Kveta Peschke, a 44-year-old Czech, downed the unseeded Zheng and 18-year-old Liang En-Shuo of Taiwan 6-4, 4-6 [10-3]. Peschke won last year's title with Latisha Chan of Taiwan.
   Zheng will play second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus on Sunday at 4 p.m. (Tennis Channel). The 10th-ranked Sabalenka, a sturdy 5-foot-11 (1.82 meters), overpowered fifth-seeded Donna Vekic, a slender 5-foot-10 (1.79-meter) Croat, 6-4, 6-3 at night.
   "I just hit the ball as hard as I could, and everything went in," the 21-year-old Sabalenka, who lost in the first round of qualifying last year in San Jose, said with a laugh.
   Zheng defeated Sabalenka 7-5, 6-3 in the first round of a $60,000 tournament in Zhuhai, China, in March 2017 in their only meeting.
   Sabalenka, who seeks her fourth career WTA singles title, is coached by former top-20 player Dmitry Tursunov, a Moscow native who moved alone to the San Francisco Bay Area at 12 to train and was based in the Sacramento area for most of his professional career.
   "He knows me really well," Sabalenka said of her 36-year-old mentor. "Before I say something, he actually knows what I'm going to say. That's amazing. I think he was the same as me when he was playing – same emotions, same problems – so he knows how to help me."
   Zheng is playing in the Bay Area for the first time since 2016, when she lost to eventual champion Johanna Konta in the quarterfinals of the Bank of the West Classic at nearby Stanford. Zheng won the doubles title there in 2015 with compatriot Xu Yifan.
    Mixing up her shots and playing tremendous defense, Zheng wore down the hard-hitting Sakkari in 85-degree (29.4 Celsius) heat that felt 20 degrees warmer. In fact, a woozy ballgirl had to be helped off the court late in the first set.
   Most of the modest crowd favored Sakkari. The 24-year-old Greek is known as "The True Spartan" at the home of the San Jose State Spartans.
   "I played really, really bad for the whole match," lamented the chiseled Sakkari, who fell to 1-2 against Zheng in their first match since 2016. "I was not playing even my minimum level. She has a tricky game, which played a huge role in the match. My level was pretty poor today to win that match after coming from a win like that yesterday. Maybe I was a little bit mentally fatigued after coming back yesterday from a set and 5-2 down."
   Sakkari stormed back from a 6-1, 5-2 deficit and saved four match points to shock top-seeded Elina Svitolina in a three-set match that lasted 2 hours, 32 minutes on Friday afternoon. Zheng needed 20 more minutes to outlast 17-year-old U.S. phenom Amanda Anisimova in the featured night match.
   "Today's match was quite different than yesterday's," Zheng said in an on-court interview. "(Sakkari) had much more spin, so I had to adapt to her game. She was really aggressive on her forehand, which gave me a lot of trouble, but I hung in there."
   Zheng's career has been slowed by injuries. After coming to San Jose on a four-match losing streak, she will improve from No. 55 to at least No. 42, four spots below her career high at the end of last year.
   Zheng frustrated Sakkari with "slice, lobs, drop shots," Sakkari said. "She's not one of the nicest players to play – tennis-wise ... she's a nice girl. You don't find this kind of player playing loopy balls at this level. Her ball has no pace. We're used to bang, bang, bang, so it's quite tough.
   "I didn't know she was going to play like that. To tell you the truth, I haven't watched her for a long time. I didn't prepare the right way. It was not so much about the drop shots. It was more about these loopy balls that I was playing when I was under 12."
   The last point of the first set was typical as Sakkari muscled a moonball long.
   In addition to making repeated errors, Sakkari served poorly. She converted only 49 percent of her first deliveries and had no aces and eight double faults, including two to get broken for 1-1 in the second set and two to lose her serve in the last game of the match. In both games, Sakkari double-faulted on break point. In the final game, her first double fault bounced in front of the net, and her second one sailed way long.
   Sakkari was mystified afterward about the cause of her serving woes.
   "That's a good question," she said. "That's something I want to ask my coach. If I (knew) what was wrong, I would (have changed) it. Maybe my legs were heavy, and I was not pushing enough to get power and height."
   Here are the San Jose singles and doubles draws and Sunday's schedule. Here's the singles draw for next week's $81,240 Nordic Naturals Challenger in Aptos, Calif. The men's tournament will be held at the Seascape Sports Club, a one-hour drive south of San Jose.
   Citi Open – Wild cards Cori Gauff, 15, of Delray Beach, Fla., and Caty McNally, 17, of Cincinnati beat fourth-seeded Maria Sanchez, a 29-year-old Modesto, Calif., product, and Fanny Stollar, 20, of Hungary 6-2, 6-2 in the final in Washington, D.C.
   Gauff last month became the youngest player to reach the singles round of 16 at Wimbledon since Jennifer Capriati in 1991.

Sakkari stages stunning comeback, ousts top seed in S.J.

Maria Sakkari, playing in the final of last year's inaugural Mubadala Silicon Valley
Classic in San Jose, rallied from a big deficit and saved four match points to stun
top-seeded Elina Svitolina in Friday's quarterfinals. Photo by Mal Taam

   Maria Sakkari made a dramatic comeback on Friday to stun top-seeded Elina Svitolina in the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic.
   After trailing 6-1, 5-2, the seventh-seeded Sakkari saved four match points in a 1-6, 7-6 (3), 6-3 victory in the quarterfinals of the second annual tournament at San Jose State.
   The 30th-ranked Sakkari, last year's runner-up in San Jose, also lost her serve in the first game of the third set but immediately broke back. She broke again to lead 4-2.
   "My coach came in, and he said, 'If you did it once in Rabat (where she beat Johanna Konta from a set and a break down in the final on clay in early May), you can do it again,' " Sakkari, 24, of Greece said on wtatennis.com.
   Svitolina, ranked seventh, last month became the first Ukrainian woman to reach the Wimbledon semifinals, her best performance in a Grand Slam tournament.
   Sakkari is scheduled to play unseeded Zheng Saisai of China today at 2 p.m. (Tennis Channel). Zheng, ranked No. 55, surprised fourth-seeded Amanda Anisimova, 17, of Aventura, Fla., 5-7, 7-5, 6-4 in 2 hours, 52 minutes on Friday night to reach the biggest semifinal of her career.
   Anisimova won her first professional title at 15 in the 2017 Sacramento Challenger and in June stunned defending champion Simona Halep to become the youngest American woman to reach the French Open semifinals since 14-year-old Jennifer Capriati in 1990.
   Sakkari and Zheng, 25, have split two matches, both in 2016.
   In the other semifinal, second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus will face fifth-seeded Donna Vekic of Croatia at 7 p.m. (Tennis Channel).
   Sabalenka, 21, outlasted sixth-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 during the day session.
   Sabalenka is coached by former top-20 player Dmitry Tursunov, a Moscow native who moved alone to the San Francisco Bay Area at 12 to train and was based in the Sacramento area for most of his professional career.
   Suarez Navarro won the doubles title in the 2014 Bank of the West Classic at nearby Stanford with countrywoman Garbine Muguruza, who last week withdrew from the Silicon Valley Classic for the second consecutive year because of an injury.
   Vekic, 23, eliminated U.S. qualifier Kristie Ahn, a 27-year-old Stanford graduate, 7-5, 6-0. Ahn ousted third-seeded Elise Mertens of Belgium in the second round for her first victory over a top-20 player.
   The 26th-ranked Vekic is 3-0 against the 10th-ranked Sabalenka, all on hardcourts. They last met in 2017.
   In the doubles quarterfinals, unseeded Shuko Aoyama and Ena Shibahara of Japan beat third-seeded Lyudmyla Kichenok and Nadiia Kichenok, 27-year-old twins from Ukraine and last year's runners-up, 6-1, 6-4.
   Shibahara, a 21-year-old native of Rancho Palos Verdes in the Los Angeles area who starred at UCLA, won the Stockton (Calif.) doubles title with Haley Carter last October.
   After tonight's singles match, International Tennis Hall of Famers Andy Roddick and Michael Chang and former top-10 players James Blake and Mark Philippoussis will compete in a one-night, single-elimination tournament. Each match will be one set.
   Here are the San Jose singles and doubles draws and today's schedule.

It's Ahn to the San Jose quarterfinals after big upset

Stanford graduate Kristie Ahn, playing in Berkeley two weeks ago,
stunned third-seeded Elise Mertens to reach the quarterfinals of a
WTA tournament for the second time. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Kristie Ahn almost cracked the top 100 in early 2018.
   It could happen this year.
   Ahn, a qualifier from Englewood Cliffs, N.J., stunned third-seeded Elise Mertens of Belgium 6-3, 6-3 today to reach the quarterfinals of the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic at San Jose State.
   The 20th-ranked Mertens, a semifinalist in last year's inaugural tournament in San Jose, committed 10 double faults to none for the 178th-ranked Ahn.
   Ahn, a 27-year-old graduate of nearby Stanford from Englewood Cliffs, N.J., earned her first victory over a top-20 player and advanced to the quarters of a WTA tournament for the second time. She will soar to at least No. 137, 32 spots below her career high, on Monday.
   Ahn, only 5-foot-5 (1.65 meters), shocked 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko in the first round on clay in Bogota in April and earned her first Wimbledon main-draw berth last month.
   In her last tournament, Ahn became so frustrated in a semifinal loss to Madison Brengle in the $60,000 Berkeley Tennis Club Challenge that she flung her racket into the crowd. No one was hurt.

   Ahn is scheduled to play fifth-seeded Donna Vekic of Croatia for the first time on Friday not before 4 p.m. Vekic, ranked No. 25, beat former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka, who won the 2010 Bank of the West Classic at Stanford, 6-4, 6-3.
   In Friday night's featured match at 7, fourth-seeded Amanda Anisimova, 17, of Aventura, Fla., will play unseeded Zheng Saisai of China.

Donna Vekic of Croatia celebrates during her 6-4, 6-3
victory over former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka.
Photo by Mal Taam

   Anisimova, ranked No. 23 after reaching the French Open semifinals in June, overpowered Brengle, the Berkeley champion, 6-2, 6-2 in 54 minutes. Zheng, ranked No. 55, whipped eighth-seeded Danielle Collins, an American who reached the San Jose semifinals last year, 6-2, 6-0 in 61 minutes.
   Anisimova, who won her first professional title at 15 in the 2017 Sacramento Challenger, overwhelmed Zheng 6-1, 6-1 in the second round at Hiroshima last September en route to her first WTA final, in which she lost to crafty veteran Hsieh Su-Wei of Taiwan.
   In Friday's other quarterfinals, second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus will meet sixth-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain at noon, followed by top-seeded Elina Svitolina of Ukraine against seventh seed and 2018 runner-up Maria Sakkari of Greece.
   The 5-foot-11 (1.82-meter) Sabalenka, 21, is 2-0 against the 5-foot-4 (1.62-meter) Suarez Navarro, 30, including a 6-1, 6-4 victory in the New Haven final last August.
   Suarez Navarro won the doubles title in the 2014 Bank of the West Classic with countrywoman Garbine Muguruza, who last week withdrew from the Silicon Valley Classic for the second consecutive year with an injury.
   Svitolina, a semifinalist in the 2015 Bank of the West Classic in her only other San Francisco Bay Area appearance, defeated Sakkari 6-3, 6-7 (1), 6-2 in the third round at Wimbledon last month in their only career meeting. Svitolina, 24, went on to become the first Ukrainian woman to reach the semifinals at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, her best Grand Slam result.
   Here are the San Jose singles and doubles draws and Friday's schedule.