Top Seed Pliskova Gets Past Gibbs, Osaka Backs Up Kerber Win to Reach Third Round
(August 31, 2017) FLUSHING MEADOWS, NY – Naomi Osaka backed up her win over defending champion Angelique Kerber, while top seed Karolina Pliskova had to fight off American Nicole Gibbs to advance to the third round of the US Open on Thursday.
Osaka needed three sets to beat Czech Denisa Allertova 6-3, 4-6, 7-5.
Asked how she won the match in the end, the Japanese teenager said: “I don’t know. I think just willpower, because I don’t really think I was playing that good today. I felt a little bit stressed because it was my first match after playing Kerber.
“So I felt a little bit of expectations to win, and I think that’s the reason why I wasn’t playing so well, but I’m not going to say that’s an excuse.”
World No.1 Karolina Pliskova had to rally past American Nicole Gibbs 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 in Arthur Ashe Stadium.
“I think I obviously came out really well in the first set,” Gibbs said. “ I wasn’t kind of thinking too much about the court or the moment, and I was just kind of committed to playing my game and playing to my targets.
“I actually thought that more often than not I was the aggressor in the first set, which, you know, is something I was looking to take away from her if I could.
“And then up until about 3-All in the second set, I felt like we were pretty toe-to-toe, and then I think I just started losing maybe a couple miles per hour on my groundstrokes and maybe started to feel the weight of the moment a little bit more, and she was able to take advantage of that and close it out in three.”
“I think she started pretty well,” Pliskova said. Her level was quite high in the beginning of the match. I quite didn’t expect that she’s going to play this way. I thought, like, little bit thought since we played two times, we practiced, saw few of her matches, she’s going to be more like defending. She really was going for her shots. All credit to her.
“Overall I think not even close to what I want to play today. So, yeah, just happy that I went through. Obviously I was improving during the match. The third one would be, like, okay, not the best, but few good shots I had, some good serves. But the first set, not even close to where I want to play.”
Other seeded women advancing were fourth seed Elina Svitolina, 12th seed and French Open winner Jelena Ostapenko, No. 15 Madison Keys, No. 17 Elena Vesnina, No. 20 CoCo Vandeweghe, and No. 27 Shuai Zhang.
Shelby Rogers defeated Daria Gavrilova in the longest-ever US Open women’s match on Thursday in 3-hours and 33-minutes. The American ranked 62 in the world won 7-6(6), 4-6, 7-6(5) over the Australian.
2004 winner and 8th seed Svetlana Kuznetsova lost to Kurumi Nara 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.
