Two-time major champion Barbora Krejcikova’s comeback from injury took another step forward with a hard-fought 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 win over 17-year-old lucky loser Iva Jovic in the Cincinnati Open third round. Krejcikova required seven match points to seal victory in 2 hours and 28 minutes.

Fellow two-time Slam winner Coco Gauff moved into the last 16 without striking a ball. The No. 2 seed had been scheduled to face No. 32 seed Dayana Yastremska — who had beaten her in the first round of Wimbledon six weeks earlier — but advanced via walkover after the Ukrainian withdrew citing an illness.

Cincinnati: Draws | Scores | Order of Play

Solid serving helped Krejcikova take the first set against Jovic, but the former junior No. 2 settled into her game in the second. Finding her range from the baseline, Jovic strung together a series of well-timed winners to even the match.

But Krejcikova responded by raising her level by several notches in the decider, teeing off on return and constructing her most patient points of the match to take a quick 3-0 lead. Though Jovic battled hard to cling on, particularly in saving the first six match points against her, the gulf was too much to make up. On the seventh, the American teenager double faulted to send Krejcikova through to a fourth-round meeting with either No. 7 seed Jasmine Paolini or No. 26 seed Ashlyn Krueger.

Krejcikova was left seriously impressed by her young opponent, though.

“I wish I played like her when I was 17!” she said in her on-court interview. “I definitely wasn’t that far, and I feel she’s having a great, great future ahead of her.”

For now, the former World No. 2 feels she’s rounding into form after missing the first six months of the season due to a back injury. She’s still looking to iron out the ups and downs that have made some of her recent matches so difficult — but Krejcikova was able to laugh about those anyway.

“I like all of my shots,” she responded when asked to pick her favorite. “And it’s very nice when I can put all of them together so they are making sense. Sometimes they don’t, and then it’s a disaster!”

Krejcikova will next face No. 7 seed Jasmine Paolini, who saved one set point down 6-5 in the first set en route to defeating No. 26 seed Ashlyn Krueger 7-6(2), 6-1, in a rematch of the 2024 Wimbledon final. Krejcikova claimed her second major crown by winning that match 6-2, 2-6, 6-4, and leads the overall head-to-head 2-0.

Elsewhere, 20-year-old German qualifier Ella Seidel continued her breakout tournament by saving two match points — one with a forehand winner into the corner — in the deciding tiebreak against No. 29 seed McCartney Kessler, advancing 6-4, 2-6, 7-6(6). Seidel, who is competing in her first WTA 1000 main draw, notched her third career Top 50 win, and second of the week following her upset of Emma Navarro.

 

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