17 aces in a women’s tennis match doesn’t happen too often when you don’t have monster servers like Dalayna Hewitt or Karolina Pliskova involved, but we saw that when Lulu Sun and Fanny Stollar went to war in Toronto this morning. Stollar started with one straight down the middle, and she completed a hold to love with a fabulous forehand winner down the line. Sun took slightly longer to get warmed up, giving away a break point when she hit a forehand into the net, but she saved that with a beautiful cross-court backhand winner before finishing the game with her own first ace.
Stollar held to love again in a game which included her second ace, and then won a good short rally in the next game with a beautiful inside-out overhead volley. Sun hit another ace on the way to holding again, and then hit a fabulous inside-out forehand return off Stollar, who responded with a stunning cross-court backhand lob. She then blotted her copybook with forehand and backhand shots into the net, and that gave away the first break of serve. Sun added two aces in the next game before Stollar hit a beautiful forehand winner through the left side of the court, and finished off her game with a fabulous backhand winner down the line off a good, but not quite good enough, drop shot from Sun. Another ace from the left-hander completed a hold to love, and she started Stollar’s next game with a beautiful backhand winner down the line.
The Hungarian responded with a lovely cross-court forehand volley before hitting another ace down the middle, and she closed out the game with a beautiful cross-court forehand winner. Ace number six from Sun came as she looked to serve out the set, and she forced Stollar into two forehand errors to finish it off after 36 minutes.
The second set started with the only other game in the match that went to deuce, but the first highlight came on the opening point with the best rally of the match. It lasted for 19 shots before Stollar overhit her final backhand. She hit an ace on the way to the first deuce, and another to get the advantage. A beautiful cross-court forehand winner from Sun to end a good short rally got her to a second deuce – so Stollar banged another ace down the middle. She gave away that advantage by hooking a forehand into the tramlines, and Sun grabbed the lead with a fabulous forehand winner down the line before Stollar found the tramlines again, this time with a backhand, to lose the game after just under seven minutes.
Sun held to love to consolidate the break, winning a great rally with a beautiful backhand winner down the line after hitting ace number seven, and Stollar kept level on that score with another in the next game. Two more from Sun helped her win the next game, and she broke again when Stollar lost her last two points with forehand unforced errors. Sun’s tenth and final ace came when she held again next up, but the highlight of that game was a fabulous forehand winner down the line from Stollar to end a good short rally. She then held serve to keep her hopes alive but, when Sun forced her to hit a forehand into the net in the next game, it was match point, and another nice backhand winner down the line completed the victory after an hour and 15 minutes. The final score was 6-4, 6-2.