U.S. Open recap: Paolini and Andreescu extend rivalry as Tsitsipas toils

Posted by Admin August 28, 2024 Tennis

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Welcome to the U.S. Open briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories on each day of the tournament.

On day two of the U.S. Open 2024, a losing streak derby played out, the Grand Slam rivalry and the shot of the tournament was a lock.

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Who is the unluckiest loser?

Tuesday’s match between China’s Zhang Shuai and the American Ashlyn Krueger was like the opposite of the immovable force meeting an unstoppable object.

It pitted Zhang, on a 22-match losing streak, against Krueger, who had lost all six of her main-draw matches at a Grand Slam. Something had to give and in the end, it was Krueger who stopped her unwanted sequence by coming back from a bagel to register a 0-6, 6-1, 7-5 victory.

The result leaves Zhang trying to come to terms with 23 straight losses, way past the previous WTA record of 18 and also surpassing the ATP record of 21, held by Vince Spadea.

Zhang Shuai is still searching for a first win in 2024 (Mike Stobe / Getty Images)

Zhang last won a match in January 2023 at the Lyon Open when she was ranked in the world’s top 25. It’s been a devastating collapse since then for a player who took six months out from the sport at the back end of last year and into 2024 in an attempt to recharge and arrest the slide.

After losing this latest match, she and Krueger shared a warm embrace at the net. Krueger in some ways knows what Zhang has been through, but her poor run seems like nothing compared to what her opponent is enduring.

Charlie Eccleshare

Where will Paolini and Andreescu go after Grand Slam rivalry?

Same matchup. Same result.

Tuesday night, Jasmine Paolini and Bianca Andreescu met for the third consecutive Grand Slam in 2024. Paolini emerged victorious for the three-peat of their Grand Slam rivalry this year, winning 6-7(5), 6-2, 6-4 over Andreescu in two hours and 48 minutes.

“It’s tough to play first round against her,” Paolini said. “She won here. She’s a really great player.

“I think today she played a really good match. Both of us, it was a fight, almost three hours.”

All three matches had long rallies and gruelling games, with both players overcoming deficits in their matches. Look no further than Paolini, who after losing an 80-minute first set rallied to win five games in a row.

Watch the highlights of all three matches and you’ll see stellar shotmaking. On Tuesday, the exclamation point was Paolini’s emphatic forehand return at 4-4 in the third set on break point to go up 5-4 and ultimately secure the match.

The previous two times Paolini beat Andreescu at slams, she advanced to the final. At Roland Garros, it was her first Grand Slam final. At Wimbledon, it cemented her place as one of the top players in women’s tennis, reaching a career-high ranking of world No. 4.

For Andreescu, it’s another match of what could’ve been. Early in the third set, she appeared to step awkwardly on her left foot. It resulted in Andreescu calling for the physio a couple of times and walking gingerly the rest of the match.

She did fight in the third set, but it wasn’t enough. Since winning the U.S. Open in 2019, Andreescu has had to retire from matches or take extended breaks due to injury. Tuesday was another example of Andreescu showing flashes of brilliance only to be dimmed by physical ailments.

At the net, the two embraced. Paolini said after that Andreescu told her she was “playing well and that she hoped next time she’s going to win.”

“I said to her, ‘I hope no,’” Paolini said while laughing.

Hopefully, these three matches at slams foreshadow more epic battles in the future.

Lukas Weese

Will Stefanos Tsitsipas ever get to grips with New York City?

Stefanos Tsitsipas has always said he loves New York. It just doesn’t love him back.

The Greek, who has made the finals of Grand Slams in Paris and Melbourne, has now missed out on the second week in New York seven times out of seven. For the third time in six years, he lost in the first round Tuesday, falling to Thanasi Kokkinakis of Australia, who beat him 7-6(5) 4-6, 6-3, 7-5.

When it was over, Tsitsipas said this loss felt bigger than just another defeat in a tennis match.

“I’m nothing compared to the player I was before,” he said. “I remember myself playing when I was younger, playing with the adrenaline on the court feeling like my life depended on the match.

These things are kind of… I feel like they have faded off.”

Stefanos Tsitsipas is also searching for solutions in a difficult year (Luke Hales / Getty Images)

He gets pushed and doesn’t respond. He walks onto the court wanting to feel joy and doesn’t find it. “I need to reproduce the hunger that I had back then,” he said.

The problem? He just doesn’t know how.

Is it burnout? Maybe, he said, but more of a long-term burnout because it’s been one or two years since he felt what he used to feel and played the consistent tennis that he used to play. It doesn’t help that in that time a new generation of players have replaced him as the heirs to the sport’s throne.

The days when he was who they are now seem long ago.

Matt Futterman

Single-surface specialist breaks new ground

In Monday’s U.S. Open briefing, Maria Sakkari, who is highly ranked despite consistently poor performances at the slams, featured.

Now, it’s the poor performances of a player on certain surfaces that come under the microscope. Pretty much all the surfaces, in fact.

Mariano Navone of Argentina, now ranked No 36 (and as high as No 29 a couple of months ago) beat Germany’s Daniel Altmaier in four sets on Tuesday. Nothing remarkable there, except for the fact this was Navone’s first Tour-level win on a surface other than clay. He reached the world’s top 30 having never won an ATP match on a hard or grass court.

Instinctively, this feels wrong. It’s fine to accumulate points on one surface, but to be able to get so high with zero pedigree on the others feels like an oddity.

But, as ever, these are simply the quirks that exist within the tennis ranking system. Navone next faces Britain’s Dan Evans on Thursday as he looks to double his number of Tour-level non-clay-court wins.

Charlie Eccleshare