I had much difficulty watching her, she was complaining to the chair umpire about Kiki "complaining for nothing" and guess what she does at EVERY CHANGE OVER? She COMPLAINS!
and when she's laughing at her opponent on ROS or after losing a point. At the end Kiki is too kind imo shaking her hand and kind of "comfort" her...
Well done Kiki . She has not had a dramatic rise since hiring Bajin like some people (and I'm sure he) probably expected, yet slowly but surely she is improving and getting significantly better results than before. Has a great chance against Bertens next round.
Great, enthusiastic crowd on this smaller court! And a well contested match (only 4 more points won overall by the winner).
Mladenovic actually playing some of her best tennis of the year. A better serving day and solid volleys. Sevastova not so much, she was uncharacteristically bad at the net and leaking errors off sitters.
However she had that great patch down a set and a break, where she suddenly went on a drop shot kill spree. Must have won at least 8 points with it in that stretch. Also dictating with heavier forehands (often painting the baseline), breaking down the Mladenovic backhand and dragging her all over the court.
Of course, despite having success with those tactics she completely abandoned them in the final set. :lol:
Beating slumping Sevastova who has not beaten anyone good this year is not a sign of improvement on Mlad's part. And her net play was all over the place in the middle set. She has a shot at making SF here, though. But only because fellow Kiki is exhausted and injured. And then she could get tired Belinda or non threatening Flipper who only beats bashers like Yastremska.
Funny enough, doubles specialist Mladenovic won her only tournament in Russian indoors at St. Pete couple years ago. Who knows... I do like the top half better, though, with the likes of former champ Pavs and Muchova.