By Chris Oddo | Wednesday August 15, 2018
Lesia Tsurenko snapped an 11-match losing streak against the Top 10 by knocking off defending champion Garbine Muguruza in Cincinnati.
Photo Source: WTA.TV
The hardcourt season is quickly slipping away from Spain’s Garbine Muguruza. The Spaniard saw her Western and Southern Open title defense snubbed at the first hurdle on Wednesday in Cincinnati as she fell 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 to Lesia Tsurenko.
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Muguruza, who withdrew from San Jose and Montreal with a right arm injury, couldn’t shake the rust off in time to defeat Tsurenko on the main stadium. She let go a set lead and also leads of 3-0 and 4-1 in the decider.
The Spaniard has now lost four of six since reaching the Roland Garros semifinals in June. She falls to 22-13 on the season.
"I'm happy that I didn't feel pain," Muguruza told reporters after the match. "I competed. Didn't go my way. I'm going to take that positive and keep training for US Open."
Muguruza will drop out of the Top 10 for the first time in over a year as a result of the loss.
The seventh-seeded Spaniard pitched in 43 errors against 22 winners on the day. After saving all three break points she faced in the opening set, Muguruza could only convert six of ten in the final two sets.
Tsurenko, who snapped an 11-match losing streak against the Top 10, will face Russia’s Ekaterina Makarova in the round of 16. The Russian thumped France’s Alizé Cornet, 6-2, 6-0.
Tsurenko began the long road back from 3-0 down in the decider by cracking a forehand winner for 3-1 just as winds began to swirl and rain threatened in Cincinnati.
Muguruza saved a break point in the next game, taking a backhand out of the air and ripping it crosscourt, and held for 4-1, but she would drop the final five games from there.
Back-to-back errors helped Tsurenko hold for 4-4 from 30-all, and a backhand error allowed the Ukrainian to break for 5-4.
Tsurenko fell behind 0-30 while serving for the match but she won the final four points to clinch her victory in two hours just before the rains came.
Stephens Rolls On in Cincy
American Sloane Stephens cruised into the round of 16 with a convincing 6-3 6-2 win over Tatjana Maria early on Wednesday. The World No.3 dropped just 10 points on serve and broke serve five times on seven opportunities to set a round of 16 clash with Belgium’s Elise Mertens.
Mertens edged Sweden’s Rebecca Peterson 3-6, 6-2, 7-6(1).
In other action before the rain delay on Wednesday in Cincinnati, No.9-seeded Karolina Pliskova fell to Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus 2-6, 6-3, 7-5, while No.16-seeded Ash Barty continued her fine form on hardcourts by defeating Kaia Kanepi 7-5, 6-3.