By Chris Oddo | Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Ajla Tomljanovic rallied from an early deficit to upset Madison Keys in Stanford. Andrea Petkovic and Carla Suarez Navarro were also upset.
Photo Source: Bank of the West Classic
It started like a snoozer, switched into a thriller and ended as a snoozer again.
In the end, Ajla Tomljanovic’s 1-6, 6-4, 6-1 victory over Madison Keys was also a statement. The victory, the second Top-20 scalp that the Croatian has claimed this season and first since January, is clear proof that Tomljanovic’s power and shotmaking potential is on par with Keys. She’s struggled to make big results this season, but if the Croatian can harness her power and turn it into consistent results on tour, she certainly could make a run at the Top-20 herself.
More: Karolina Pliskova is Set to Join the Top 10 Next Week
Tomljanovic was blasted in the first set pretty quickly by Keys. She held in the first game but was broken in the next two games from deuce. Keys kept the pressure up and didn’t drop a point on serve until her third service game. She broke for a third time to take the set.
“That was tough,” Tomljanovic said. “I really thought I would be off that court in like 35 minutes. I just tried to hold serve. That was my biggest thing.”
But in the second set Tomljanovic lifted her level to match Keys, and the two exchanged in several elevated rallies in the early moments in a tussle for control. Tomljanovic would break for 2-1, and though Keys protected her serve for the rest of her set with some bruising one-two tennis, Tomljanovic hit back with big-time power of her own winning 12 of her last 15 service points to level the match.
“I knew there would be times where she would give me some free points and she did,” said Tomljanovic, “so I just tried to build off of that and that’s when my game started coming together.”
In the third Tomljanovic broke Keys to 15 in the opening game then saved a break point to hold for 2-0. It was the last time she was challenged on serve. She broke again for 3-0 and after Keys got on the board with a love hold to climb to 4-1, Tomljanovic swept the last two games to complete the victory and even the lifetime series with Keys at one apiece.
Tomljanovic will face the Pliskova-Date-Krumm winner in Friday’s quarterfinals. It’s her third quarterfinal of 2015, and first since May.
In other second-round action on Wednesday at Stanford, Germany’s Mona Barthel scraped by seventh-seeded Andrea Petkovic, 5-7, 6-2, 7-6(4), while Alison Riske upset third-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro, 6-4, 6-4, for her first Top-10 victory of the season.