Olympian and club player Çağla Büyükakçay faced world number 16 Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic at Arthur Ashe Stadium, which is the world’s largest tennis court with a capacity of 23,771. The games was in the second round of the American Open and Büyükakçay lost 7-6, 6-3 after a close match.
Büyükakçay beat American Irina Falconi in the last Grand Slam of the year being held in New York. In her second game, although she began by breaking her opponents serve, she fell 3-1 behind. Kvitova then raised the score to 5-2 and earned a great advantage for taking the set. At 5-2, Büyükakçay won three games against the left-handed former world number 2 and equalled the score at 5-5. In the next two games the players did not break each other’s serve and the set was decided by a tie-breaker. Kvitova, the former 2011 and 2014 champion and winner of the WTA Championship held in Istanbul in 2011, won the tiebreaker 7/2.
While there were no broken serves in the first six games of the second set, Kvitova changed the course of the game in the seventh set. Breaking Büyükakçay’s serve and taking the lead 4-3, the bronze medallist at Rio 2016 went on to win the set 6-3.
Çağla Büyükakçay, who began the week at WTA rank 66, the top of her record, will continue to compete at Flushing Meadows in the couples category in partnership with the Latvian Anastasija Sevastova. The Büyükakçay/Sevastova couple will play against Alicja Rosolska of Poland and Danka Kovinic of Montenegro at the opening round game on Thursday.
