Marc-Andrea Hüsler falls with honors and leaves Belinda Bencic the only Swiss chance at the US Open

As at Wimbledon at the end of June, Marc-Andrea Hüsler (ATP 85) fell with honors at Flushing Meadows. For his big first in New York, the Zurich player pushed Denis Shapovalov to the limit of five sets.

Seeded No. 19, the Canadian won 2-6 6-4 6-4 3-6 6-1 after a big scare and a 2h57 fight. Marc-Andrea Hüsler benefited from a break point to lead 6-2 5-3. Denis Shapovalov was able to dismiss him before delighting the service of the Zurich player and thus reversing the course of the meeting.

Semi-finalist last week at the ATP 250 tournament in Winston Salem, Marc-Andrea Hüsler ultimately offered the hoped-for response in a meeting during which he won three points more than his opponent (129 against 126). .. He probably lacked more experience around such a match to win. At 26, the left-hander is still a “new” player on the ATP Tour.

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One in six

After the defeat of Marc-Andrea Hüsler, Belinda Bencic (No. 13) is the only representative of Swiss Tennis qualified for the second round. Viktorija Golubic earlier in the day, Jil Teichmann, Alexander Ritschard and Stan Wawrinka on Monday were all eliminated from the start. The Olympic champion, however, suffered to retire the German Andrea Petkovic (WTA 104) who is playing in New York the last tournament of her career.

Winner in three sets (6-2 4-6 6-4), Bencic could have paid a high price for his refusal to take the step forward to conclude the exchange. She will have to evolve with greater serenity Thursday in the second round to take her revenge on the Romanian Sorana Cirstea (WTA 37), who had beaten her two weeks ago in Cincinnati.

Raducanu starts from scratch

The chronicle of the women’s table was enamelled by the elimination in the first round of the defending champion, the Briton Emma Raducanu, beaten 6-3 6-3 by the Frenchwoman Alizé Cornet. It’s not a huge surprise, as the young Englishwoman is struggling to find the sensations that made her a Grand Slam winner at 18 without having ever won a WTA match before. Before that entrance loss at Flushing Meadows, she was knocked out in the second round of the first three Grand Slams of the year. Raducanu also faced an Alizé Cornet who seems to have found a kind of second youth at 32 years old.

“This defeat hurts because it’s my favorite tournament and I experienced immense emotions there last year,” admitted Emma Raducanu at a press conference, who should drop to 80th in the world at the end of the season. tournament. “I am now starting from scratch and I have to start over, find freshness. But let’s put things in perspective: being Top 100 at 19, if someone had told me last year, I would have signed, “she said.

Read also: Emma Raducanu also wrote the story

Naomi Osaka is falling too

The big match of the night session finally saw the American Danielle Collins, 19th in the world and finalist of the last Australian Open, beat 7-6 6-3 the Japanese Naomi Osaka, winner in New York in 2018 and in 2020, fallout since ranked 44th in the world. Osaka, who has repeatedly expressed issues dealing with her emotions in recent months, had never been knocked out before the third round at the US Open since first appearing in 2016. She had also won her last three matches against Danielle Collins . But the American knew how to play her luck thoroughly, believing that she “had nothing to lose”.

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