Sonay Kartal vowed to come back stronger after her 6-3, 1-6, 6-1 defeat by the 18th seed Beatriz Haddad Maia in the first round of the US Open after struggling with excruciating full-body cramps in warm conditions on Tuesday afternoon in New York.<\/p>\n
For much of her main\u2011draw debut at the US Open, Kartal battled admirably, showing her problem\u2011solving abilities by recovering from a tough opening set to force a decider. But towards the end of the second set Kartal began to struggle physically and by early in the final set she was cramping all over her body.<\/p>\n
The match took another turn deep in the final set as Haddad Maia also began to struggle, culminating in the Brazilian patting serves into the court and throwing in an underarm serve in a dramatic final game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s frustrating,\u201d Kartal said. \u201cYou can see her at the other end and she had a calf thing or a hamstring or something went. So it made it even tougher. But I think at that point you\u2019re just in so much pain, you go into the dark places to try and get through. I wasn\u2019t thinking about her or anything. I was just thinking: \u2018I\u2019m going to finish the match. I\u2019m not going to call it quits.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked exactly where she was cramping, Kartal said: \u201cWhere wasn\u2019t I feeling it? We had calves, we had quads, we had hamstrings, and we had the fingers [clamped down] on the tennis racket. You feel helpless on court. My body didn\u2019t let me finish it how I wanted to feel it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Katie Boulter, meanwhile, stressed the need get to the bottom of her serving issues after her difficult run of form continued with a 6-4, 6-4 defeat against the 27th seed Marta Kostyuk.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve reached a point now that something needs to change,\u201d Boulter said. \u201cIt\u2019s not that I haven\u2019t been doing anything to change it, but something different needs to happen for me to be able to mentally step up to the line and be ready. I feel like I\u2019m doing a decent job on ball three considering the serves that I\u2019m putting in the court.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boulter has lost six of her past seven matches, dating back to a torrid second-round defeat at Wimbledon against Solana Sierra, a lucky loser. Boulter, who struck eight double faults with many occurring on key points, said considerable effort has already gone into her serve.<\/p>\n
Katie Boulter returns a shot during her defeat by Marta Kostyuk. Photograph: Clive Brunskill\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of rhythm, how long I\u2019ve struggled with it, I\u2019ve had multiple shoulder injuries. I\u2019ve had multiple arm injuries. I\u2019m not a clean slate going into my career. I\u2019ve had multiple things that have changed over time, my service motion, my service action, everything because of that. So, of course I have to adapt, and that\u2019s one of the biggest things in tennis, so I need to get better at that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tough losses continued for British players as Fran Jones, a qualifier, was defeated 6-0, 7-5 by Eva Lys and despite putting up a strong fight, Billy Harris was beaten 6-4, 7-6 (8), 6-4 by the 25th seed, Felix Auger Aliassime.<\/p>\n
On a day during which Iga Swiatek<\/a> continued her tremendous recent form with a ruthless first-round win, the tournament favourite was most satisfied with developments away from the court.<\/p>\n Moments after she departed Arthur Ashe Stadium with her 6-1, 6-2 win against Emiliana Arango, before they could discuss her performance at length, members of Swiatek\u2019s team told her that Taylor Swift, her favourite artist, had announced her engagement to Travis Kelce. \u201cShe posted when I finished,\u201d Swiatek said, smiling. \u201cMaybe that\u2019s not a coincidence. I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend\u2019s action<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The subject of Swift took up nearly half of Swiatek\u2019s post-match press conference and, when a journalist attempted to change the subject to tennis, Swiatek jokingly pretended to stand up and leave.<\/p>\n Iga Swiatek\u2019s press conference was taken up mostly with discussion of Taylor Swift\u2019s engagement to Travis Kelce. Photograph: Robert Prange\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Those scenes are relevant to her success on court. Not only is Swiatek playing quality tennis, she appears to be relaxed and in a positive frame of mind away from it. Her victories at Wimbledon and Cincinnati imbued her with confidence going into the final grand slam tournament of the season.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery year is kind of tough, because New York is just so loud, you know, and it\u2019s hard to find that balance off the court,\u201d Swiatek said. \u201cBut I\u2019ve got to say I\u2019m probably good at it compared to other players, so I\u2019m really trying to be in my bubble.<\/p>\n \u201cThe comfort level, it\u2019s hard to describe, because the tournament is so long. You basically are here for three weeks. So obviously it\u2019s not going to be the same every day. I feel pretty happy with my performance in Cincinnati and trying to get, you know, some confidence from that. There are a lot of positive vibes in the team, so it\u2019s all good.\u201d<\/p>\n Swiatek was joined in the second round by another tournament favourite at Flushing Meadows as Jannik Sinner, the men\u2019s top seed, defeated Vit Kopriva 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 to advance with ease. Sinner\u2019s last competitive appearance turned into a painful afternoon as he was forced to retire in the first set of the Cincinnati Open final against his great rival Carlos Alcaraz because of illness. After resting for a week, the world No 1 looked in fine form at the beginning of his title defence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sonay Kartal vowed to come back stronger after her 6-3, 1-6, 6-1 defeat by the 18th seed Beatriz…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-95289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}