Top-ranked Ashleigh Barty overcomes match level for win at Miami Open

Because of cancelled flights, it took Ash Barty 45 hours to journey from her native Australia to Florida for a tennis match.
Her keep on the Miami Open can be longer than that, thanks solely to an unbelievable comeback Thursday.
The top-ranked Barty rallied from an enormous third-set deficit and overcame a match level to win her opening match in opposition to qualifier Kristina Kucova, 6-3, 4-6, 7-5.
“Matches like that are extremely fulfilling, knowing you’ve done the work over an extended period to get just over the edge,” Barty mentioned. “That was a really tough one today, and I enjoyed every single second of it.”
Barty, who received the latest Miami Open title in 2019, trailed 5-2 within the last set. In the following sport she confronted a match level, which she saved by ripping a weak serve for a winner.
Barty fell behind 0-40 serving within the last sport however once more rallied in opposition to Kucova, a Slovak ranked 149th. Barty closed out the victory with a service winner, after which tapped her temple together with her index finger, a gesture of tribute to her psychological fortitude.
“We never give up,” she mentioned, “no matter what we’re feeling.”
Playing away from Australia for the primary time in additional than a yr, Barty received regardless of an unreliable forehand. She whacked 40 unforced errors on that aspect, however compensated considerably with 15 aces.
Kristina Kucova, of Slovenia, returns to Ashleigh Barty, of Australia, through the Miami Open tennis match, Thursday, March 25, 2021, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
Barty acknowledged that jet lag and the time distinction between Miami and Australia made the match a problem.
“You kind of forget how much it can take out of you,” she mentioned. “But you have to accept that’s the way it is. It worked in my favor this morning — I got to watch some Aussie football back home.”
On a heat, humid afternoon, warmth breaks had been imposed for some matches, and gamers slid baggage of ice beneath their caps throughout changeovers to chill off. The circumstances had been an excessive amount of for Brit Jack Draper, who was overcome by the warmth, collapsed on set level and retired in opposition to Mikhail Kukushkin trailing 7-5.
“The conditions got on top of me a little bit,” Draper mentioned.
Wild card Ana Konjuh of Croatia upset No. 18-seeded Madison Keys within the second spherical, 6-4, 6-2. Konjuh’s profession has been slowed by 4 elbow surgical procedures, and previously two days she has earned her first two wins in main-draw WTA play since 2018.
No. 5 Elina Svitolina of Ukraine overcame an early deficit and a wrist harm to edge American Shelby Rogers 3-6, 7-5, 6-3.
“It was not a perfect performance from me, but the win is the win,” Svitolina mentioned.
No. 3 Simona Halep additionally rallied and beat Caroline Garcia 3-6, 6-4, 6-0.
In males’s first-round play, qualifier Thanasi Kokkinakis received a top-tier ATP match for the primary time in three years by beating one other qualifier, Shintaro Mochizuki, 6-3, 6-3.
Kokkinakis is ranked No. 243 and mounting a comeback from a shoulder harm. He beat Roger Federer as a qualifier in Miami three years in the past, and returned to the tour final month after being sidelined greater than a yr.
Sebastian Korda, a promising 20-year-old American who broke into the highest 100 final month, made a profitable Miami Open debut by sweeping Radu Albot 6-3, 6-0. Another American, qualifier Bjorn Fratangelo, beat Fernando Verdasco 6-4, 6-4.