Christina McHale caused the first upset of the tournament on a sunny Monday afternoon at the Aegon Classic in Birmingham, coming from a set down to knock out the #11 seeded Alize Cornet of France 4-6 6-2 6-2.
The first set was a tight affair with Cornet edging proceedings ever-so-slightly; for parts of the set it was the Frenchwoman who was dictating play and forcing mistakes from her younger opponent. Throughout the first set it was hard to pick a winner, with both woman managing to win over 60% of first serves and 40% of second serves. Each player had three break point chances in the opening set with the french woman managing to capitalize breaking her opponent twice compared to the one break point converted from Mchale. Despite the more powerful serve of Mchale, the telling statistic was 78% of first serve points for Cornet and only 62% for Mchale. With the set wrapped up 6-4 it looked like the 11th seed should cruise.
The second set was a completely different affair, with Mcale dominating play, it seemed as though the unseeded player gave herself a stern talking-to after losing the first set. The American stepped it up a gear, managing to win 74% of first serve points and a massive 60% of second serve points. Mchale bullied the second serve of Cornet, with the Frenchwoman only managing to capitalize on 34% of points won behind her second serve, dropping drastically from the level in the first set. Mchale broke twice in the second set to eventually take it 6-2 and go into a decider.
The final set was a veritable Russian Roulette, with both players looking shaky throughout the match, however with the stronger forehand and serve and despite being the lower ranked player it was the American who entered the final set as the favourite. The entire third set was littered with break point chances from both players. Cornet managed to save 5 of her 9 break points while Mchale managed a slightly better 6/8. Mchale broke Cornet early on in the third set, then again towards the end after a lengthy game. The crushing blow came when Cornet blew a 0-40 lead on Mchale’s serve at 2-5 down, and with the American looking nervous serving it out, Cornet should have taken her chances. Mchale was not the be denied her win, managing to pull off some big serves to bring it back to deuce and eventually take the final set and the match 4-6 6-2 6-2.
It was a gritty win for the young American, beating the world #25 Cornet coming from a set down, she will next play either Monica Puig of Peru or a qualifier in the next round.
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