Spanish tennis player Paula Badosa started her journey with a victory in the Cincinnati tournament, a WTA 1,000 tournament that is the precursor to the US Open, and she will continue her good run on the hard court on the North American tour leading up to the last ‘Grand Slam’ of the year.
The Catalan defeated local Peyton Stearns with a great 6-2, 7-5 on Wednesday to regain the taste of victory after losing to Latvian Jelena Ostapenko in the second round in Toronto last week. There, the blisters resulting from her good winning streak took their toll on her in a long match.
However, the former world number two is back a week later with a serious performance in the Ohio event against a Stearns who had just made the quarterfinals in Canada. Badosa harassed and knocked down the American’s serve and took two breaks at 6-2. Afterwards, her rival reacted but the Spaniard did not let the score slip away, returning the break twice.
After winning her first title in more than two years in Washington 10 days ago, Badosa also showed in her debut in Cincinnati that she is back to the level she needs to recover those glorious years when she was number two in the world. At the moment, she is already close to the ‘Top 30’ in the rankings, when less than two months ago she was outside the ‘Top 100’, and she will now face the Russian Anna Kalinskaya.