Yuliia Starodubtseva served first in the women’s singles final at the ITF tournament in Rancho Santa Fe this morning, and she and Lulu Sun traded beautiful forehand winners down the line before Starodubtseva held.
Sun hit the first ace of the match in an equally comfortable hold, with Starodubtseva improving to get through the next game without losing a point. That wasn’t the case for Sun, who was forced into a couple of errors to give away a break point, and Starodubtseva finished a good rally next up with a beautiful cross-court backhand winner to complete the break of serve.
An ace from Starodubtseva gave her two game points next up, but she followed a cross-court backhand into the tramlines with a double fault. Sun hit a fabulous backhand winner down the line to get the advantage, and a backhand into the net from Starodubtseva gave the break straight back.
The next two games saw comfortable holds, with Starodubtseva hitting a fabulous forehand winner down the line in her game. Sun took a medical time-out at the change of ends, but it was a bit hard to see what the physio was working on, as Sun was face down on the ground. The way that she flexed her leg when she got up led me to think that it may have been for her left hip, but she didn’t seem in any real discomfort at that stage.
The next game certainly didn’t showcase any problems, with beautiful forehand winners either side of an ace, but she gifted Starodubtseva an easy hold with four consecutive unforced errors, her last three backhands disappearing over the baseline. Starodubtseva hit a fabulous inside-out forehand return in the next game, but Sun countered with two stunning inside-out forehand winners, and went on to hold serve again.
Sun did take Starodubtseva to deuce in the eleventh game, but the Ukrainian held serve with a beautiful cross-court backhand winner, and that left Sun serving to force a tie-break. That didn’t look likely when she started with two unforced errors, and the forced one which followed gave Starodubtseva three set points. She didn’t need to do anything except return the serve, as Sun sent another forehand into the net to end the set after 51 minutes.
Three more unforced errors from Sun, the last two on returns of serve, meant that Starodubtseva’s beautiful cross-court backhand winner to end a good rally in the first game of the second set was hardly needed. Sun did hold comfortably as well before starting the next game with a fabulous inside-out forehand winner to end a short rally, but for the next 15 minutes she was pretty much missing in action.
She lost the next game to love, dumping an awful overhead into the net in between two forehand errors, and Starodubtseva wrapped up the break with a beautiful cross-court backhand return before starting her own service game with a beautiful forehand winner down the line. The only point she lost was to her own unforced error, but Sun’s three gave her another easy hold.
Starodubtseva hit another beautiful cross-court backhand return as Sun sank further into the west, three more poor shots costing her another break of serve, and that left Starodubtseva serving for the match. She started with a beautiful forehand winner down the line; followed that with an ace; and gave herself three match points with a beautiful cross-court forehand.
I don’t know what galvanised Sun into action, but she saved the first with a fabulous backhand return down the left sideline, and the second with a stunning forehand winner down the same side. The best rally of the match came next, and again Sun came out on top, this time with a beautiful cross-court forehand winner. She hit another fabulous forehand winner down the line to get the advantage, and Starodubtseva sent a backhand into the tramlines to concede the break.
Sun had to save a fourth match point to get to deuce on her own serve, and the game became the only one in the match to get to a second deuce, this one coming from a beautiful inside-out forehand return by Starodubtseva. Another fabulous backhand winner down the line from Sun got her the advantage, and the margin was reduced to one break when she forced Starodubtseva into a return error.
What I was hoping for here was for Sun to copy Sara Bejlek’s example in Santa Margherita di Pula last night, when she came back from 0-5 to win the second set (and the match) in a tie-break. The difference here was that Starodubtseva is a far better player than Caijsa Wilda Hennemann, Bejlek’s opponent, and it seemed unlikely that she would let Sun off the hook.
Then again, when she was forced into an error to give Sun two break points, maybe a comeback wasn’t so far-fetched after all. Starodubtseva forced Sun to hit her next forehand into the tramlines, but the latter self-destructed from there, three more unforced errors ending the game, the last being a backhand into the net. The final score was 7-5, 6-3, and the match took an hour and 35 minutes.
Sun was supposed to play in another $60,000 tournament in Quebec, but has withdrawn. She’s still in the equivalent event next week in Toronto. Despite today’s loss, she has still jumped 29 spots in the singles rankings this week, and is now around the cut-off for the qualifying draw at the Australian Open. If she can string together a few more wins her place in Melbourne will be assured.