This was a late one, even for the city that never sleeps.
The fourth-round match between No. 6 seed Bianca Andreescu of Canada and No. 17 Maria Sakkari of Greece ended at 2:13 a.m. Eastern time Tuesday, the latest-ever finish of a women’s singles match at the U.S. Open. The previous latest finish was 1:46 a.m. in a 2016 match between Madison Keys and Alison Riske.
Sakkari ended Andreescu’s 10-match winning streak in U.S. Open play by defeating the 2019 champion 6-7 (2), 7-6 (6), 6-3 and earning a place in the quarterfinals against Karolina Pliskova. The match was 3 hours and 30 minutes of physically demanding, pound-the-ball tennis, capped by Sakkari starting her post-match media session at 2:30 a.m. And she isn’t a night person.
“I actually think I have a very bad record with night matches. When I found out [Sunday] I’m playing night, I was not happy at all because I’m an early morning person. I still haven’t figured out how I have to plan my day,” she said.
“But Tom [Hill, her coach] was like, ‘Before the match, I’m giving you my word that after this match, you’ll change your mind from night matches,’ and he’s right.
“Now, well, I can say that it happened, that I played tennis at 2:30 in the morning.”
Andreescu was limping badly by the end of the match and often falling because of an apparent problem with her left thigh. She received medical treatment in the third set. She lands on her left leg when she serves, and she could be seen wincing when she had to push off on that leg or land on it.
Andreescu said in a statement released by the Women’s Tennis Assn. that she had experienced leg cramps and also felt the impact of sliding and falling on her groin.
She was prepared for a tough match, she said, and she got one.
“I was expecting that and I went out there with the right mind-set, I think, and I did the best that I could,” she said. “I wish I could have finished it in two sets, because I had my opportunities, but tennis is just like that sometimes.
“I take everything from this tournament and I just look at it like, ‘Wow, I really fought through that. That was crazy …. I just kept fighting, and for me that’s all that matters. I did my best.”
Sakkari said the momentum shifted in the middle of the second set, after she decided she had been too passive.
“I think in the first set especially I was not going for my shots like I normally do. I was a little bit, you know, not very confident with my groundstrokes,” she said. “I said, ‘Maria, if you want to win this match, you have to go for it. It’s better if you go for it and miss than just make balls, she hits winners.’”
She credited her work with a psychologist for helping her rebuild her confidence after a 6-2, 6-2 loss to Angelique Kerber at the Cincinnati Masters tournament three weeks ago. “After my loss with Angie, I just practiced for two weeks. I had some very tough practices where I was crying because I could not feel my shots, I could not feel my tennis. But thankfully I had Tom and Yannis, my hitting partner, that supported me a lot,” she said.
“I lost my identity. That’s how I called it. I lost myself, part of myself. With my psychologist, as well, I found a way to come back and feel again what I felt out there today. By telling myself to be more brave, it’s not like, ‘Maria, now be brave,’ and you’re brave. It’s just a process in practice and everything that has helped me to be more brave.”
Sakkari and Pliskova split their previous two tour-level matches. Pliskova, the No. 4 seed from the Czech Republic, is a former world No. 1. She was the Wimbledon runner-up this year, losing a three-set final to Ashleigh Barty, and she has never won a Grand Slam singles title.
“She has played [the] final here. She has some experience, more experience than me,” Sakkari said. “But I’m just going to stick to what I’m doing best, try to return as good as I can, because that’s I think the most important thing against Karolina. Just keep fighting, that’s it. That can take you far.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
