Belgium’s Alison Van Uytvanck produced a good comeback win to defeat last year’s Linz champion Barbora Strycova 3-6 6-4 6-4, and will progress to the semifinals.
It was the defending champion Strycova that made the first impression on the scoreboard, breaking in the opening game, but she never truly broke away from her Belgian opponent for an elongated period of time. Strycova made her intentions known very early as she mixed up the pace and the direction of her first serve in order to keep her opponent guessing, but she deliberately played the majority of her 2nd serves into the Van Uytvanck backhand, which worked very well in stages, but it became a predictable pattern of play as the match progressed.
The 32-year-old Czech finished the first set so well–playing consistent, secure tennis from the baseline, ghosting into the net on occasions, and she generally gave very little away towards the end of the set. Van Uytvanck committed one too many errors in the first set, but she got better and better. Like Strycova, the Belgian was trying to vary her play and show her own bag of tricks, but she generally was playing with a lot flatter groundstrokes from the baseline, and the shots that were narrowly missing wide at the start, were starting to find the court, which gave Strycova a greater problem to solve.
A break of serve at the start of both the 2nd and the 3rd set was all that was required from the improving Van Uytvanck, who improved the quality of her serving, played supremely well on serve in the big moments, but she also benefited from the fact that the Czech’s weight of shot made her increasingly vulnerable and the depth of her shot varied all match. Strycova’s rally ball sat up far too many times, which gave the Belgian the opportunity to pick her favourite shot and to select her targets, and Strycova surrendered control of the court far too easily off the return of serve. It was Van Uytvanck’s ability to be able to take on the ball and finish more points off the serve and in terms of her groundstrokes that made the difference and decided the match at the conclusion.
The Belgian talked in her post-match press conference about the key to turning the match around and the difficulties with playing a player, like Strycova, who really breaks up the rhythm of the rally time after time:
“I think my serve helped me a lot today. I could really rely on it in important moment on break points against me and that really allowed me to be even more aggressive on her serve as well. So I think that was the key today, yeah.”
“She’s a talented player. She can play anything. She can suddenly play serve and volleys or she can hit the ball really well. It is tough to play her. So at the beginning you have to try and figure out what is working better. I think I adapted well in the 2nd set to go faster down the line with my backhand to her forehand. I was staying a little bit too much cross-court with her best shot, thats her backhand. I changed that and it helped me a lot to gain that advantage. Come more to the net and got more rhythm on her.”
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