It was always going to be tough for Jade Otway to follow up her first round qualifying win over Chelsea Fontanel in Tyler, and she found top seed Maria Kozyreva far too strong in the second round this morning. The scoreline looks terrible, with Otway winning just one game in each set, but there were so many points that she gave away with unforced errors that the result should have been much closer. Kozyreva held serve comfortably to start the match, hitting a couple of nice backhand winners to finish, and immediately had Otway at 0-40 after the New Zealander finished a good rally with a cross-court backhand into the net. I couldn’t see the next point, or the one which finished the game, because the ITF stream was having similar hiccups to those yesterday, but Kozyreva hit return errors on all three intervening points, and I thought Otway did very well to hold serve. Unfortunately for her, Kozyreva would win the next ten games in a row.
Otway really should have won her second service game, blowing two easy game point chances with unforced errors before hitting two forehands over the baseline after she double faulted to go to deuce. She was up 40-15 next time round, but was forced to hit a forehand into the tramlines before Kozyreva hit a beautiful cross-court backhand winner to get to deuce. A forehand into the net from Otway gave away the advantage, and Kozyreva completed the break with a beautiful backhand winner down the line to end a good rally. Kozyreva hit a beautiful inside-out forehand winner to give herself two set points, but missed the first when she hit a forehand over the baseline. She made no mistake with the second, a cross-court forehand completing the set after 30 minutes.
You couldn’t really blame Otway for losing her serve in the first game of the second set, as Kozyreva won the first two points with nice overhead volleys before finishing with a beautiful forehand winner down the line. She started her own game by winning another good rally with a nice backhand volley down the line, and forced Otway to hit a forehand wide to end the best rally of the match after 14 shots. She got game points with a beautiful backhand winner down the line, and Otway lost another good rally on the final point when she overhit another forehand. Otway then had another poor game, filled with unforced errors and ending with a double fault, and the only points Kozyreva lost when she served again were from a couple of shots she hit into the net.
The next game was Otway’s best of the match by so far that it made me wonder why she hadn’t tried playing like this earlier. Kozyreva started with a beautiful inside-out forehand winner before hitting a cross-court backhand into the tramlines, and Otway got the next point with a beautiful forehand winner down the line. Kozyreva then hit a forehand over the baseline before hitting a fabulous cross-court forehand return which forced Otway into a forehand error, but the New Zealander shocked Kozyreva, and probably everyone watching as well, when she aced the Russian out wide to win the game. Kozyreva stood there, hands on hips in the classic teapot stance, arguing with the umpire that the ball had gone wide. I must admit that I had thought the same, but the call stood.
Otway then hit four unforced backhand errors in a row to gift Kozyreva an easy hold, which meant that she had her to hold serve to stay in the match. There were good rallies on the first two points, Kozyreva ending the first with a nice inside-out forehand winner before Otway took the second with a beautiful forehand winner down the left sideline. Two forced errors from Kozyreva gave Otway game points, but Kozyreva saved the first with a beautiful cross-court backhand winner before another freeze in the stream meant that I couldn’t see how Otway lost the next point to drop back to deuce. A backhand into the net from her gave Kozyreva a match point, but that disappeared when she hit a forehand into the tramlines. She got a second match point when winning the good rally which followed the second deuce, and the match finished on a very low note for Otway when she double faulted for the fourth time. The final score was 6-1, 6-1, and the match took an hour and three minutes.
Otway has now reached a career-high point of 930 in the live rankings, and will be very competitive in 15K and 25K tournaments, but she is quite tall for a female tennis player, and is still getting used to the fact that she needs to move much better if she’s going to succeed at higher levels. She won’t be able to coast the way that I imagine she has been able to in many of her college matches.