As Wozniacki completes her preliminaries, Mertens is 4-2 up on Petkovic and Townsend is 2-0 up on Cirstea and looking set fair for victory.
Wozniacki is just about to take to the stage at the Arthur Ashe, and she faces a tough opponent in the teenage Canadian. Townsend, by the way, won the first set 7-5 against Cirstea and they have just begin the second.
It’s 5-5 between Townsend and Cirstea now. They cannot be separated. And in the other live game in the women’s singles, Mertens has a 2-0 lead in the second set on Petkovic, having won the first set.
Mertens takes the first set against Petkovic, 6-3, the damage done with that pair of early breaks. Townsend and Cirstea continue to slug it out at 4-4. It’s exhausting to watch, never mind play.
Townsend levels to make it 3-3 with a crashing overhead shot. It’s a popular winner among what is still a sparse crowd in the Louis Armstrong court. Question: was Louis Armstrong a tennis fan? I know the court was named after him as a Queen’s resident.
And Townsend breaks back again, and it’s 2-3 against Cirstea. This game is topsy turvy, to say the least. Mertens is 4-2 up now. Meanwhile, we await the arrival of Wozniacki and her match in the Arthur Ashe court with Andreescu.
Townsend breaks back but faces a real problem in trying to hold her serve in the next, being taken to deuce and requiring a fierce winner to save a break point. Then comes another winner from Cirstea and the need to save another break point. Then comes another, which is finally claimed. It’s 3-1 to the Romanian. Mertens has another break and is 3-1 up on Petkovic.
Some early breaks. Townsend has been broken early and it’s 2-0 to Cirstea, while Mertens has taken a 2-0 lead on Petkovic.
First on the Grandstand court will be Elise Mertens and Andrea Petkovic, a clash of Belgium v Germany. And on the Louis Armstrong court will be the American Taylor Townsend and the Romanian Sorana Cirstea. It’s a day heavy on the doubles action, and Jamie Murray is in action with fellow Brit Neal Skupski against Juan Ignacio Londero and Ricardas Berankis, an alliance of Argentina and Lithuania.
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Preamble
Back to Queens we go – the New York one, not that posh place by Baron’s Court – and what looks to be a pretty low-key middle Saturday until we reach the prime time meeting of Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka, the plum third-round match in either of the singles. Before that, Rafa Nadal will be expected to make serene progress past Chung Hyeon, the Korean ranked number 141 in the world in uncharted territory at the US Open. There’s also Caroline Wozniacki, losing finalist in 2009 and 2014, and who will be playing a dangerous opponent in Canada’s Bianca Andreescu, just 19, and who has also not reached as far as this.
Here is a full order of play from the official site.
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