Svitolina breaks early in third set against Maya Joint
The ninth seed dominated the opening set, lost a tiebreak to the young Australian, then broke immediately at the start of the third.
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The match on day four
Elina Svitolina, the No. 9 seed at the US Open, was pushed to a third set by the Australian Maya Joint in a fourth-day match at Flushing Meadows, according to a live report from Nine.com.au.
Svitolina controlled the opening set. Nine.com.au reported that Joint was down 0-4 barely 15 minutes in and was, in the outlet's words, pumped in the first set.
The Ukrainian then began the third set at a much higher level. She broke Joint's serve straight away and came close to breaking again, leading 40-0 in the third game before Joint won five straight points to hold.
The second-set tiebreak
Joint recovered in the second set by using her backhand to dictate rallies and force errors from Svitolina, Nine.com.au said. She served for the set at 5-4, but Svitolina broke back and then held to move a game from victory.
Joint survived a deuce game to force a tiebreak. Svitolina took an early mini-break, Joint levelled at 4-4, and a Joint backhand beyond the baseline handed Svitolina a match point.
Joint saved it with a forehand winner that landed on the baseline. She earned set point when Svitolina hit into the net and took the set when another Svitolina shot went wide. The broadcaster Sam Smith said of one Svitolina shot that she doubted the player would hit a better backhand for the rest of the tournament.
Result not reported and the wider draw
The live coverage supplied here stops during the third set and does not record who won the match. The final outcome is therefore not known from these sources.
Svitolina is married to the French player Gael Monfils, who turned 40 on the day of his first-round win and beat Adolfo Daniel Vallejo of Paraguay 2-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-0. Tennis Majors reported that Svitolina, watching from the stands, sang along as the crowd sang Happy Birthday to him. Yahoo Sports wrote that Monfils acknowledged his wife in the crowd, noting she had a match the following day.
Elsewhere on the same day, Nine.com.au reported that the Australian James Duckworth lost to Wu Yibing 7-5, 6-3, 6-1, that defending men's champion Carlos Alcaraz dropped the first set 6-4 to Jaime Faria of Portugal before leading the second, and that Stefanos Tsitsipas needed four sets to beat South Africa's Lloyd Harris.
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