Liudmila Samsonova has endured her fair share of third-set struggles this season, but she flipped the script Monday night in Washington, D.C., winning the last four games from 4-2 down in the decider to upset No. 6 seed Madison Keys, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, in 2 hours and 24 minutes.<\/p>\n
Washington: Scores<\/a> | Order of play<\/a> | Draws<\/a><\/p>\n “I didn’t expect to be here today, honestly,” Samsonova said in her on-court interview. “I was just trying to be positive and (fight) until the end. And then how it goes, it goes.”<\/p>\n This time, it went her way. Samsonova’s second win over Keys at the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz level sends her into the second round, where she’ll face the winner of Wang Xinyu and Julieta Pareja.<\/p>\n Samsonova opened with sharp ball-striking and led 3-2, but missed chances on early break points proved costly. Keys won the last four games — and 13 of the final 15 points — to take the first set, a surge that began when Keys broke from 40-0 down for a 4-3 lead.<\/p>\n Remember that.<\/p>\n Samsonova steadied in the second set to force a decider, which remained tight through the first four games. Keys then held at love and broke at love for 4-2. She extended her run to 11 straight points and reached 40-0 with a chance to hold for 5-2, seemingly closing in on the finish line.<\/p>\n A string of errors — capped by back-to-back double faults — allowed Samsonova to convert her fourth break point of the game and get back on serve at 4-3. She broke again two games later and, serving for the match, the 2022 champion closed out the American to earn a win on US soil.<\/p>\n Here are more numbers to know from Samsonova’s upset win.<\/p>\n 2: Three-set wins in 2026. Samsonova improved to 2-10 in three-set matches this season. Both wins have come in her last three outings.<\/p>\n 4: Top 30 wins this season. The 27-year-old more than doubled her season total over the past month. Her Top 30 victories have come against Keys, Diana Shnaider, Ann Li and Sofia Kenin.<\/p>\n 5: Straight losses to Keys entering Monday. Samsonova snapped a five-match skid against the former Australian Open champion. Her last win in the head-to-head had come five years ago in the 2021 Berlin quarterfinals.<\/p>\n 12: Break points earned. Samsonova generated twice as many break chances as Keys. While she only converted three, two came late in the third set.<\/p>\n 14: Double faults. Despite 14 doubles faults — the equivalent of 3.5 games’ worth of points — Samsonova survived.<\/p>\n Bonus: Keys won more total points (99 to 95), but Samsonova won the ones that mattered most.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liudmila Samsonova has endured her fair share of third-set struggles this season, but she flipped the script Monday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":789020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428,1959],"class_list":["post-789338","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\/789338","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=789338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}