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Elina Svitolina was relieved to get through a late-night match at the Australian Open early on Friday morning. The fight from Lauren Davis in the second set came down to the stronger forehand, which the Ukrainian finished 6-2, 7-6(6) on Margaret Court Arena at Melbourne Park.
This marked the fifth time the two met with the Ukrainian winning each one. Despite not meeting in two years, the American had a massive challenge with the World No. 5 who flew through her opening round match against Katie Boulter. The huge win overshadowed Svitolina’s struggle at the start of 2020, but getting into gear meant that she could potentially make this her true shot for a grand slam title.
Lauren Davis got the match started with a hold of serve that lasted four games. It wasn’t until a break on deuce in Svitolina’s favor made it 3-2 with her chance to run off with the lead. A baseline lob strategy didn’t pan out for Davis, who thought she could get a break back.
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Instead, the fifth seed opened the gap after six and scored the double break to serve for the set at 5-2. The American had two break chances to extend the set but both went sour ending the set in 36 minutes for the Ukrainian who fired her fifth ace for the set.
Davis opened with another good solid service game, but the big forehand of Svitolina leveled things early in the second. They held serve through six games until the seventh when Davis fought hard to hold serve as the Ukrainian threatened. The American battled through two breaks before securing the hold and going big against Svitolina’s game.
The fifth seed committed some critical errors on serve that handed Davis a break and the chance to force a decider on serve. Svitolina held her off and broke back in the ninth, hoping that her night could end sooner rather than later.
Svitolina rushed to victory in the tenth to extend the set and earned a shot with good defense to break Davis in the 11th. With the service in hand to go for the match, the world number five fell behind with the American working the big forehand while her opponent’s let her down. With a tiebreak left to play, Davis kept the forehand as her best attack on Svitolina. The two stayed close with the fifth seed getting ahead after nine points traded.
Davis leveled things at five-all, but a match point for Svitolina came with Davis serving up a crosscourt winner to carry on. A second one for the Ukrainian arrived on a lob strategy that gave her an open court behind Davis, putting a winner in for a second match point. After 1 hour and 32 minutes, the victory for Svitolina arrived on a long ball from Davis giving the 25-year-old a huge sigh of relief. During her on-court interview with Ian Cullen, Svitolina said:
“It was a very tough match. It’s always tough to play against Lauren (Davis). She gives you one extra ball and work really hard with our feet to adjust to her flat shots and I moved well and happy to have finished in two sets and we can all go to bed now.”
She’ll prepare for a big match against Garbine Muguruza to see who will advance to the Round of 16 this weekend.
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