Lajovic and Ristic One Win From US Open Draw

Three matches were played in New York overnight and this morning to decide which Serbian players would reach the US Open main draw and which would be heading home. Two advanced, one was eliminated, and all three matches had their share of twists.

Dusan Lajovic was the first to give Serbian fans something to cheer about. He needed one hour and 54 minutes to beat Spain’s David Jorda Sanchis, world No. 192, 7-5, 7-6(7-2). Two breaks in the first set, against one lost service game of his own, were enough to put him ahead. In the second, he reached 5-4 and held two match points on his opponent’s serve but failed to convert either. Instead of closing it out quickly, the match went to a tiebreak, where Lajovic, ranked 167th in the world, was completely dominant and sealed the win 7-2. He now faces Coleman Wong of Hong Kong, the world’s 94th-ranked player, in the qualifying final.

Mia Ristic made even more convincing work of her match. She beat Portugal’s Francisca Jorge, 229th on the WTA list, in one hour and 21 minutes, 6-1, 6-3. She broke serve four times in the first set while dropping her own just once, and a single break was enough to close out the second. Her opponent in the qualifying final will be decided once Japan’s Himeno Sakatsume plays Italy’s Tyra Caterina Grant, two players who had been off the radar of the Serbian public until now.

Lola Radivojevic, whose earlier progress we reported on, was not as fortunate this time. She lost to Russia’s Kristina Lyutova 6-2, 5-7, 6-4, after two hours and 19 minutes of a fight that swung her way twice before slipping away. Tanjug describes the round as the qualifying semifinal, while B92 calls it the second round of qualifying; the sources disagree, and that discrepancy is worth flagging rather than quietly picking one version.

The second set brought the first twist. Lyutova served for the match at 5-4, but Radivojevic reeled off two straight breaks to take the set in her own favor. The third set brought another turn, this time against the Serbian. Radivojevic trailed 2-4 and 3-4, clawed her way back to 40-0 on Lyutova’s serve, then squandered four break points that would have brought her level. She immediately lost her own serve, and with it the match. Lyutova, ranked 125th on the WTA list against Radivojevic’s 150th, will face Poland’s Martina Kubka in the next round of qualifying.

Kristina Lyutova’s name was already known before this match. The 16-year-old Russian won a WTA 250 title in Memphis just a few weeks ago, becoming one of the youngest champions in the history of that level of competition. By all accounts, Radivojevic ran into an opponent currently playing the best tennis of her life, and that is the only reason a match in which she held four match points to stay in the fight did not go her way.

For Lajovic and Ristic, the story continues. Both are one match away from the main draw of the Grand Slam in New York, a stage that carries an entirely different weight than qualifying, and a different payout at the end of the tournament. Lajovic against Wong, and Ristic against the winner of the Sakatsume-Grant match, are the last hurdles before Serbia finds out how many representatives it will have in the US Open main draw.

The organizers will announce the date and time of the qualifying finals later, as is usual whenever the previous round wraps up late in the evening local time.