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John McEnroe thought Iga Swiatek started to get “unsure of herself” in a shock US Open loss to Jelena Ostapenko. Swiatek, the defending US Open champion, exited the final Grand Slam of the season in the round-of-16 after world No 21 Ostapenko handed her a 3-6 6-3 6-1 loss.
With the US Open win, Ostapenko improved to a very impressive 4-0 head-to-head against Swiatek. “I turned on the match and Swiatek was winning and won the first set. So I was like, ‘OK, maybe she’s figured it out’.
Then I don’t know what happened, her level dropped and she didn’t seem to be able to adapt, to do anything different. And then she looked like she started to get unsure of herself, not sure what to do. And Ostapenko plays with a lot of pace – you don’t know what you’re going to get except the ball is going to come at you hard.
Even though she had a 3-0 record against Iga, I thought she [Swiatek] was going to win that match. I was surprised she lost 6-1 in the third set,” McEnroe told Eurosport.
McEnroe thought Swiatek started to get ‘unsure of herself’ against Ostapenko
In the first set, Swiatek got broken in the first game of the match but still won the opening set after claiming breaks in the second and sixth games of the opener.
But after winning the first set, Swiatek made a slow start to the second set as Ostapenko opened an early 3-0 lead in the set. Swiatek managed to get the break back in the seventh game but then again dropped her service in the eighth game as Ostapenko opened a 5-3 lead.
Serving for the set in the ninth game, Ostapenko converted her first set point to send the match into a third set. Then, Ostapenko made an astonishing start to the third set as she broke Swiatek in three consecutive games for a 5-0 lead.
Ostapenko failed to serve out for the match in the sixth game but broke Swiatek for the fourth time in the set in the seventh game – when the Pole was serving to stay in the match.
