15 year old Kostyuk dispatched seeded Peng Shuai in R128 at the Australian Open - remarkable enough. Arguably more remarkable is that she then spoke to WTA Insider (Courtney Nguyen) and gave a more substantive and interesting interview than you'll ever hear from pretty much any full tour regular: http://www.wtatennis.com/news/insider-qa-how-marta-kostyuk-keeps-even-keel
I'm sure she'll learn guarded cyincism soon enough, but, for now, this was refreshing. Also that she was allowed to give long form answers.
Very good interview, thanks for the link.
I remember watching her beat Jodie Burrage in quite a tight match in the L16 in last year's Aus Open juniors ( checking the score again, it was 6-7(5) 6-1 6-4 ). Jodie ( then 17 ) played pretty well and was in there in the final set. Marta ( then 14 ) did look to have real quality but also looked then to really feel the pressure at times and was beatable, indeed a meltdown looked possible, She was to go on to take that title, which got her into qualifying this year and on to where she is now, in the MD R2, having beaten a seed.
Marta Kostyuk has won again, beating the Aussie WC Rogowska in straight sets.
And in the L32 we have (Q) Marta Kostyuk (UKR) vs (4) Elina Svitolina (UKR) !
Well done again her. One hopes the L32 match is very exciting news in Ukraine. If Kostyuk somehow shocks Eli and deprives them of their best ever Slam chance, will that endear her to her homeland? I suppose that ultimately would depend on what she then went on to achieve. That is all the beginnings of a very deep speculative rabbit hole though...
Will be an interesting match, one I'll definitely tune in to.
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I wonder who was the last 15 year old male to get to the third round of a slam?
Not sure if this counts: Aaron Krickstein was 16y 2d when he made fourth round of the US Open in 1983. He started the tournament as a 15 year old.
That counts in my book and as suspected much longer ago than the ladies. Thanks for that amazing bit of trivia, how did you know that?
I must confees: I did not know that. I looked up the youngest ever ATP title winner of any description, and figured that would be a good place to start. There may be more recent examples, though one suspects not. Historically, the men seem to have their 'youngest' records about 2 years older than the women, so 16-17 is the earliest for any success. Where as the Rinaldi's, Jaeger's, Austin's were all 14. This is in line with my unedcated guess based on my pre-conceived received opinions about the rate at which each sex matures developmentally.
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Congrats to Rebecca Marino who was out of the sport for 5 years, following severe mental health issues. And won her first MD match in her comeback yesterday.
All the best to her.
Not often someone would get a mention on this thread for losing in the QR1 of a Challenger, but thought we should give a quick shout out to American Ryder Jackson. He lost in the 1st round of qualies at the San Francisco Challenger today despite putting up a really good fight. He was actually up a break early in the 3rd before finally going down 6-3 6-7(7) 6-3. He even managed to serve 11 Aces.
So why is this so remarkable ? Ryder is just 12 years old.
Edit
Scrap this post. Despite both the ATP and ITF profiles having his birthday down as May 2005 and state his age as 12 years old, I have since found this article from March 2016 which suggests he was 15 at that time. So unless he is Benjamin Button in disguise, he is now 17 and not 12.
Congrats to Rebecca Marino who was out of the sport for 5 years, following severe mental health issues. And won her first MD match in her comeback yesterday. All the best to her.
And she's through to the final without losing a set! Big warm hug of a comeback story.
Congrats to Rebecca Marino who was out of the sport for 5 years, following severe mental health issues. And won her first MD match in her comeback yesterday. All the best to her.
And she's through to the final without losing a set! Big warm hug of a comeback story.
Oh thank you! How have I missed this. This has made me very happy.
She was a serious talent, and I loved watching her.
Even if this is the only new event she ever plays, it's a huge achievement - like Ash Barty but exponentially more so.
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Data I post, opinions I offer, 'facts' I assert, are almost certainly all stupidly wrong.
Congrats to Rebecca Marino who was out of the sport for 5 years, following severe mental health issues. And won her first MD match in her comeback yesterday. All the best to her.
And she's through to the final without losing a set! Big warm hug of a comeback story.
And, she wins the title upon return, with never a lost set (NB: she did have one walkover, in her SF).
Fantastic human-interest, feel-good result.
There are a lot of players who have stopped early for one reason or another, and I think that most of them have a chance to return at some point, maybe years later, like Sevastova. I never thought Rebecca would return, ever.
Very, very pleased.
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I attack the WTA as an organisation very regularly, and their website. So, I am happy to report that they have a very good article for once, with Helena Sukova, on the occasion of her entry to the Tennis Hall of Fame, about her career and Czech tennis in general. It's a long(ish) form piece, too, which is great. That probably means it will be read by fully tens of people; I enjoyed it though, and futiley hope for more in a similar vein. http://www.wtatennis.com/news/helena-sukova-reflects-legacy-czech-tennis
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Data I post, opinions I offer, 'facts' I assert, are almost certainly all stupidly wrong.