First there were heavy breathing after the lightning-fast rallies, then emotional gestures and questioning looks towards the coaches, and at the end of both the first and second sets, players were hitting their own legs with their rackets in anger. Magda Linette was to finish the first day US Open improving Polish moods fans after previous failures Magdalena Frech and Maks Kaśnikowski, but instead she added a big disappointment. She lost to Iva Jović, who was making her debut in an adult Grand Slam competition.
Fourth time's a charm – that's what Linette's fans were preparing for after the duel with Jović. Because earlier this season, the experienced Poznań player said goodbye to the Grand Slam competition in the opening match. In the Australian Open, in the initial phase of the second set of the match with the famous Dane of Polish origin, Caroline Wozniacki left with tears in her eyes, retiring due to a thigh injury. In Roland Garros and Wimbledon, fate was not on her side – she met higher-ranked opponents and lost to both the Russian Ludmila Samsonova and the Ukrainian Elina Svitolina.
The bad streak was supposed to end in New York. At the opening Shelf she had to play against Jović, who will celebrate her 17th birthday in December and who got into the main draw thanks to a “wild card”. And less than two months ago she competed successfully in the junior Wimbledon (she reached the semi-finals). With her performance on Monday, she certainly repaid the organizers of the New York event for this sign of trust in the form of a pass to the main part of the “adult” competition.
Linette was also supposed to break the spell of court no. 15 on Monday – just before her, Kaśnikowski competed there. The 21-year-old, making his Grand Slam debut, fought a nearly 4.5-hour match, but lost after five sets to the higher-ranked Pedro Martinez (the Spaniard is 43rd on the ATP list, and the Pole 194th). It seemed that his older and much more experienced colleague would quickly deal with an opponent about whom most fans had not been able to say much before. It turns out that Linette did too.
– We had time to analyze her game, but it was much harder to find materials. We know something, I have a preliminary outline of her game. I know what to expect more or less. We also know that it can be a different story when you step out onto the court, especially at a tournament like this, where she will definitely have 100% support. I will have to learn her game as I go – said the Pole in a Sunday interview for Eurosport.
She also said that at some point during this difficult season, she gained composure and started making better decisions on the court. However, she lacked this in the match with Jović. Much of the credit for this goes to her opponent, whose parents are Serbian immigrants. She imposed a very fast pace. She showed her very offensive attitude in the first game, in which she recorded a break straight away.
The excellently moving American regularly forced Linette to run from one side of the court to the other. She quickly began to breathe harder. At first, she still reacted calmly to her opponent's good play. As if trusting that she wouldn't be able to keep up such a pace for much longer. But over time, the favorite's expression became increasingly uncertain, and her game became increasingly nervous. That's what happened when the scoreboard showed 1:3, and then 3:5. She defended the first set point in the ninth game, but folded in the next one.
After more mistakes, emotions also came, and there were quite a few of them. When she messed up her return at the end of the first set, she hit her leg hard with her racket twice for the first time. This kind of behavior resulting from frustration could be seen in some players before, but Linette had not been associated with it so far.
At the beginning of the second set, it seemed that such venting of anger helped her. The semi-finalist of the Australian Open 2023 started it spectacularly and effectively – she recorded three winning strokes on her own serve. The next two service games did not herald trouble either – she won both without losing a point. But at 3:3 there was a downturn – despite leading 40:15, she lost her serve, which then – after multiplying mistakes again – happened to her again. In the end, all she could do was hit her leg with her racket in anger again.
The loss is all the more unfortunate because in recent months Linette's game seemed to be getting back on track. In July, she won the tournament in Prague, and then in the first round of the Olympic tournament in Paris, she unexpectedly dismissed 17-year-old Mirra Andreeva, a semi-finalist at Roland Garros 2024. Now, however, the path to her first Grand Slam victory of the season has been blocked by her peer, a Russian who competed in the junior edition of the US Open a year ago.
That performance in New York (she was eliminated in the second round) saw Jović return to play after a forced break of several months – she watched Wimbledon 2023 on TV at home in Los Angeles, with the crutches she used after breaking a bone in her foot. And even before the September resumption of competition, she had to deal with ankle problems. Now she shines on the court again.