Romanian tennis player Sorana Cirstea surprised the 29th-seeded Russian Veronika Kudermetova at the start of the US Open, defeating her by 2-1 (7:6, 3:6, 6:0) in a match that lasted a little more than 2 hours.
The powerful service of Veronika Kudermetova, who scored 6 aces, was not enough to compensate the double faults and the low percentage of the successful first service. The Russian player made also 20 unforced errors. On the other hand, Sorana Cirstea scored 31 winners and saved four break points.
The first set started with an early break for Veronika Kudermetova, which she kept almost by the end of the set. When the set was running relatively well for her, she received a surprising break for 4:4. On her next service game the situation almost repeated, as Sorana Cirstea has a breakpoint, but missed it and the Russian player succeeded to keep the result equal – 5:5. The set went into a tiebreak, which was won by the Romanian by 7-5, which brought her the first set.
The second set was moving game-for-game without breaks. Veronika Kudermetova had two chances to break the service of Sorana Cirstea in the fourth game, but the Romanian saves both and the results remain 2:2. The 8th game of the set, at the service of Sorana Cirstea, was the longest in the match and passed through 3 break points for the Russian player. She lost the first two, but the last was successful and took a lead at 5:3, which was enough for her to win the set by 6:3.
The third set was total domination for the Romanian player, who made 3 breaks and did not gave any chance for her opponent.
Thus, Sorana Cirstea won the match and in the second round will play versus the American Shelby Rogers, who defeated Madison Brengle by 2-0 (6:4, 6:0).
