Maria Sakkari beats Marta Kostyuk in Wuhan and calls her 2017 breakthrough there 'a century ago'

Comeback against the eighth seed

Maria Sakkari of Greece reached the third round of the Dongfeng Voyah Wuhan Open on Tuesday by beating eighth seed Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine 4-6, 6-2, 6-2. Sakkari lost the opening set and then took control, winning the next two sets by the same score, according to the WTA and Tennis Tonic. ^{[1] [3]}

Sakkari, a former world No. 3, is ranked No. 35, Agence France-Presse and the WTA reported. The win over Kostyuk was her third against a top-10 opponent this season, according to the WTA and Neos Kosmos. ^{[2] [1] [5]}

The tournament is her first singles appearance in Wuhan since 2018, according to the WTA and AFP. She opened this year's event with a straight-sets win over Croatia's Donna Vekic. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

Looking back at 2017

Wuhan holds a particular place in Sakkari's career. In 2017 she came through qualifying ranked No. 80 and beat Caroline Wozniacki, Elena Vesnina and Alize Cornet in consecutive matches before losing to Caroline Garcia in the semifinals, according to the WTA and Tennis Tonic. The run lifted her into the top 50 for the first time. ^{[1] [3] [6]}

"That's when I cracked the top 50 for the first time," Sakkari said after the Kostyuk match, as quoted by the WTA and IANS. "It is a special place in my heart because I had my first big wins against Wozniacki, Vesnina, Cornet back in the day." ^{[1] [4]}

"It feels like it was a century ago," she said. "Sometimes I look in pictures, nowadays, I feel very young, but back then I was even younger." She said she now has "a lot more experience, more maturity," and added: "Back then, I was just a little bit fearless, and I didn't really think about too much. The more you grow up, the more you think about other things." ^{[1] [4]}

"It's been almost 10 years since that run, and I'm still producing some very good tennis," Sakkari said, according to both outlets. ^{[1] [4]}

Lessons from the week before

Sakkari tied the Wuhan result to a loss the previous week. "Last week against Svitolina, I think that I was playing good," she said, referring to Elina Svitolina. "I was just not brave enough to take those break points." ^{[1] [4]}

She said she had expected a hard match against Kostyuk, who she said had "been playing some amazing tennis this year." Her focus, she said, was on doing "something different than last week." "The base of my game is there," she said. "It's just that I need to try to be a little bit more brave in the big moments." AFP and Neos Kosmos carried the same remarks. ^{[1] [4] [2] [5]}

Next up

Sakkari's third-round opponent is wild card Mia Pohankova, with the match scheduled for Thursday and a quarterfinal place at stake, according to the WTA, Tennis Tonic and IANS. No result had been published when this article was written. Tennis Tonic reported that the two players have not met before. ^{[1] [3] [4]}