Daria Kasatkina kicked off her campaign at the Wimbledon Championships with a straight-set victory, who had seen her find some difficulties only in the second set, but eventually prevail. The 19-year-old met Victoria Duval, who entered the tournament with a protected ranking, following a long absence from the competition. Duval had returned on the courts for grass season after one only previous appearance on tour, at this year’s Australian Open, where she lost in first round to another seed, Elina Svitolina.
Kasatkina has achieved her very first victory on grass; at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club she is playing her fourth major tournament in her career. She made her debut at 2015 U.S. Open, reaching the third round as a lucky loser; she started from the main draw at the following Australian Open and then made her debut at French Open and Wimbledon as a seeded player.
Kasatkina runs ahead to take the first set
16 minutes is the time occurred to Daria Kasatkina to book the first set.
A double-fault followed by three errors in a row marked a very bad start of the match for Duval, who lost her serve right from the start of the first set.
Falling 0-40 down right away, the American signed her first point of the match with a backhand winner, but eventually lost the game.
Three disastrous games followed; Kasatkina broke her to love again, another time with a huge help from the American’s errors. The Russian advanced to hold to love, and then broke Duval’s game once again with the 20-year-old incapable of scoring at least one point.
Kasatkina faced the first trouble while serving for the set. Quickly 30-0 up, the Russian hit two errors to bring the game to 30-30 score, and then wasted a first set point hitting a forehand unforced error. Duval, however, couldn’t grant herself any chance to take one of the breaks back and remain in the first set; she eventually surrendered to the Russian’s third set point, hitting the eleventh unforced error of this short set.
Duval didn’t manage to win a single point during her service games.
Duval attempts a comeback, Kasatkina claims the match
The second set saw more balance in the play, with Duval regain more confidence on serve. It didn’t start very differently from the beginning of the previous set, as three errors from the American helped Kasatkina to break her game right from the start and gain an early advantage.
After another hold to love from the 19-year-old, Duval managed to hold the first service game of the match, taking advantage of repeated errors from her opponent. Nevertheless, she couldn’t steal more than one point from the following Kasatkina’s service game, letting the Russian keep her advantage.
Another series of errors from Kasatkina, however, eased the following hold for Duval, who avoided falling anymore behind in the set, trailing the Russian from 2-3 down.
Kasatkina held again with little struggle, and another time she became her own worst enemy during her opponent’s service game, in which Duval hit her first and only ace of the match. Duval exchanged the gift, as she badly lost the following game to love, closed by an ace from the Russian. Another hold from the American and Kasatkina had the chance to serve from the match, from 5-4 up.
Two winners from Duval and two unforced errors from the Russian cost the 29th seed the first dropped of service game of the set, without scoring a single point. Leveling off the game to a 5-all scoreline, Duval gained the chance to reopen the games in the second set.
The American, however, couldn’t consolidate the score; falling immediately 0-30 down in her following service game, she rallied back to 30-30, but another unforced error gave the Russian the chance to rush ahead again, which she consolidated right away.
On her second chance to serve out the match, Kasatkina didn’t choke again, winning the game to love to close the match with a final 6-0, 7-5 scoreline.
Duval had gained more confidence in serve after the first set, with a good percentage of points won on her first serve (17 out of 24, against the 0 out of 8 of the first set), but only 3 out of 11 won with the second serve. A better performance came from Kasatkina, with a good percentage of points won on both first and second serve throughout all the match.
A larger number of unforced errors (25 to the Russian’s 14) had negatively influenced the match for the American.
Daria Kasatkina advanced to the second round on grass for the first time in career; she will meet Lara Arruabarrena for a place in the third round. The players will meet for the second time in career. The Spaniard won their only previous meeting, during the qualifying tournament in Sidney this year, following Kasatkina’s retirement while she was 7-5, 1-0 down.