Eighth-seeded Emma Navarro received a stern test from another NCAA singles champion before emerging with a first-round win at the Australian Open.
Navarro, the 2021 NCAA champ for Virginia, got past Peyton Stearns, the 2022 NCAA champ for Texas, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (5), 7-5 on Tuesday in Melbourne, Australia.
Stearns broke serve deep in the third set to pull level at 5-5, but Navarro subsequently held serve, then broke Stearns’ serve for the victory after 3 hours and 20 minutes.
“One of the more unique matches I’ve played in a while,” Navarro said. “It was (about) just relying a lot, I guess, on my grit and toughness and fight.
“I just kept telling myself there at the end, ‘Make the most of the skills I have today.’ I think maybe that’s something that kind of clicked there for me at the end.”
In contrast to Navarro’s marathon match, sixth-seeded Elena Rybakina cruised to a first-round win in 53 minutes. The Kazakhstani player thrashed 16-year-old Australian wild-card entrant Emerson Jones 6-1, 6-1.
Rybakina recorded an 11-0 edge in aces without serving a double fault. Jones double-faulted six times, and she failed to convert any of her six break-point opportunities.
In another all-U.S. matchup, No. 19 Madison Keys defeated Ann Li 6-4, 7-5.
Elsewhere in the first round, No. 9 Daria Kasatkina of Russia routed Bulgaria’s Viktoriya Tomova 6-1, 6-3; No. 15 Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil overtook Argentine qualifier Julia Riera 4-6, 7-5, 6-2; No. 24 Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan downed Armenia’s Elina Avanesyan 4-6, 7-5, 6-2; and No. 32 Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine beat Egypt’s Mayar Sharif 6-1, 6-4.
Great Britain’s Emma Raducanu, the 2021 U.S. Open champion, upset 26th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova of Russia 7-6 (4), 7-6 (2) despite serving 15 double faults. Raducanu did have a 9-1 advantage in aces, but she won just 30 percent of her second-serve points.
“The amount of double faults is uncomfortable, for sure, but it is something I had to accept,” Raducanu said. “I’m working on my serve, and part of it came with first-round nerves.”
Other winners included the United States’ Iva Jovic and Amanda Anisimova, France’s Varvara Gracheva, Montenegro’s Danka Kovinic, Romania’s Gabriela Ruse, Russia’s Erika Andreeva, Germany’s Eva Lys and China’s Xiyu Wang, Shuai Zhang and Yafan Wang.
–Field Level Media
