Two former Grand Slam champions competing as wild cards in the ATX Open both fell in their opening matches on Tuesday. Ajla Tomljanovic came from 3-1 down in the first set to defeat Venus Williams 6-4, 6-1, while Dalma Galfi came through a 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 rollercoaster against Bianca Andreescu in 2 hours and 11 minutes.<\/p>\n
Austin: Scores<\/a> | Draws<\/a> | Order of play<\/a><\/p>\n Four years ago, Tomljanovic added her name to the tennis history books by becoming the last player to defeat Serena Williams before the 23-time major champion’s retirement in 2022, winning their US Open third round 7-5, 6-7(4), 6-1. The 32-year-old Australian, a semifinalist in Austin last year, had not previously faced elder sister Venus, and admitted to nerves ahead of the match against a player she described as an “inspiration” in the sport.<\/p>\n “But somehow Venus and Serena tend to bring the best out in me mentally,” Tomljanovic said in her on-court interview. “Becaude I always think, ‘What would they do in that moment?’ I try to make it work for me, instead of against me.”<\/p>\n Though her Arthur Ashe tilt against Serena is now far in the past for Tomljanovic, it’s still a memory she holds on to — not just because of the occasion, but how she reacted to it.<\/p>\n “I constantly, in the last four years, try to channel how I was in that match against Serena,” she said. “Because I’ve never felt that since.”<\/p>\n Against Venus, Tomljanovic withstood a strong start from the 45-year-old to turn the contest in her favor. Venus broke immediately, nailing a pair of vintage winners and taking advantage of consecutive Tomljanovic double faults, and consolidated for 2-0 with her best shot of the match — a brilliant backhand pass down the line.<\/p>\n Venus was unable to convert two points to hold for 4-2, though, and the match began to turn from there. The seven-time major champion also held two points to level at 5-5, but was denied by a combination of creativity and luck from Tomljanovic — a wildly spun sliced winner that caught the top of the tape.<\/p>\n Though the second set was closer than the scoreline suggests, Tomljanovic was able to take control by winning two key multi-deuce games, saving two break points to hold for 2-1 and then converting her fourth break point to seal a decisive 5-1 lead.<\/p>\n The result meant that there would be no inter-generational second-round meeting between Venus and No. 2 seed Iva Jovic, who advanced 6-3, 6-4 over Anna Blinkova. When Jovic was born in December 2007, Venus was already a six-time major champion, and was ranked No. 8 after compiling a 50-11 record that season. Instead, Jovic will face Tomljanovic for the first time.<\/p>\n Tomljanovic’s win made her one of only two players to be undefeated against both Williams sisters. The other is 2019 US Open champion Andreescu, who was playing her first WTA main-draw match since Tokyo last October. In January, she opted against playing the Australian swing, instead compiling a 13-1 record at ITF level including two titles.<\/p>\n Against Galfi, the Canadian bounced back from a slow start to turn the match into a nailbiter. Demonstrating fine net play, she overturned a 4-2 deficit to take the second set, and seemed on the way to repeating the comeback from 5-2 down in the third after saving two match points and holding two points to level at 5-5. However, Galfi raised her level just in time, finding a series of winners to close out victory.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two former Grand Slam champions competing as wild cards in the ATX Open both fell in their opening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428,1959],"class_list":["post-488950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}