Bouzas and Quevedo shine in their Madrid debuts and Badosa is eliminated

The Spanish tennis players Jéssica Bouzas and Kaitlin Quevedo have advanced to the second round of the Mutua Madrid Open, in the WTA 1000 category and which is played on clay, after winning respectively against the Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia (6-1 and 6-1) and the American Venus Williams (6-2 and 6-4), while the also Spanish Paula Badosa has fallen in her debut against the Austrian Julia Grabher (7-6[3]4-6 y 6-0).

Bouzas was the positive note this Tuesday on the opening day of the women’s team. The Galician, who debuted a new serving technique at the Caja Mágica, was far superior to her opponent throughout the match and only missed two games in what is already her best result in the tournament.

Their victory began to take shape with a spectacular start, winning five games in a row – two of them the rest -. With that 5-0, having raised a set point against, the Brazilian added her first game as an anecdote, since Bouzas in the next service turn closed the first set in 36 minutes, supported by an audience dedicated to her favor.

And if the first set on the Manolo Santana Court had been overwhelming, the second was almost the same. This time, Haddad Maia started by holding serve, which seemed to predict greater resistance. However, Bouzas went ahead with six consecutive games, sealing the victory before the hour and a quarter of the game was up. Now, her rival for a place among the top 32 of the tournament will be the German Diana Shnaider.

Badosa did not suffer the same fate, as he showed his usual irregularity and wasted two set points in a first set that he dominated 5-3. Although she reacted in a better second set and forced the third after screaming with rage, the Austrian was then intractable and gave him a ‘donut’ to end a match that lasted two hours and 35 minutes.

This defeat is punishable for Badosa, who will be forced to play the qualifying phase of Roland Garros if she wants to enter its main draw. On this occasion, the problems of the Girona native, who has not made it past the first round in her last three tournaments played, were due to a very low level of serve; He could only maintain it in five of the 14 games he played, at a rate of 26% of points won with second serve and 12 double faults.

Of course, the Madrid fans rinsed that bad taste out of their mouths thanks to Quevedo during the afternoon session. After the good feelings left with the Spanish team of the Billie Jean King Cup in their recent tie against Slovenia, Quevedo surpassed these 1/64 finals in Madrid.

With a ‘break’ in her favor after the very long opening game of the match, the player with Canarian origins immediately consolidated that advantage (2-0) and then expanded it with another quick break. Despite giving up his next turn of serve, Quevedo returned the break to Williams right after.

Showing poise in difficult moments, Quevedo accelerated to win the first set in 52 minutes and force his opponent to change something in his repertoire. The veteran American, who had a wild card to compete in this tournament, took a 0-3 lead in the second set and pushed.

He even worried Quevedo during the fourth game with a 30-30 score, but he did not end that fight and accused him. In the fifth she lost her serve and from then on she was in tow of her rival, a plugged-in Quevedo who after one hour and 43 minutes crystallized her comeback until she won and met in the next round with another American, Hailey Baptiste.