WHAT HAPPENED: It wasn't always the most convincing of performances, but No. 10 seed Jelena Ostapenko did just enough to outlast Andrea Petkovic, 6-4, 4-6, 7-5, to advance to the second round of the US Open on Tuesday.
The hard-hitting Latvian struggled with her serve early in the match, but the strength of her offensive weapons gave her just enough firepower to overcome the initial struggles in a match that was as close as the three-set scoreline suggests.
"Of course, winning is always good," Ostapenko said. "The way I finished the match, I'm glad. But I had more opportunities, especially I won first set and 3-0 up. Then my game level dropped a little bit. But my opponent, she was playing very well today. She was fighting [until] the end.
"Of course conditions were difficult today. It was very humid and also very hot, but it was the same for both of us. We had to deal with it."
Ostapenko led 3-0 in the second set and both 4-1 and 5-2 in the third before eventually scraping past Petkovic, who failed to wilt in brutally hot conditions where shade was nowhere to be found.
In a contest of short, fast-paced rallies played exclusively behind the baseline, Ostapenko won a tense opening set despite six double faults and losing two-thirds of the points on her second serve. She committed twice as many errors as winners, but she still emerged unscathed, largely because she was able to break Petkovic three times in five tries.
The German was far from her best, and while Ostapenko dictated points and accepted the fact that her high-risk, high-reward strategy would fail as often as it succeeded, Petkovic was largely unable to hit through her opponent and was more of a passenger on a bumpy Ostapenko joyride.
With the 21-year-old winning the first three games of the second set, the match appeared to be racing to a quick conclusion, but Ostapenko, one of two Latvian women in the singles draw alongside Anastasija Sevastova, took her foot off the gas and allowed Petkovic to creep back into contention.
Petkovic, who reached the French Open semifinals in 2014, broke in the fourth game of the second set to get back on serve when Ostapenko's forehand sailed long. The German didn't seem to be feeling the effects of the left thigh injury that forced her to retire in New Haven last week, and she began overturning the disparity in rankings — Ostapenko is No. 10, Petkovic is No. 89 — that had earlier been accurately represented inside Louis Armstrong Stadium.
A thundering forehand down the line gave Petkovic a vital break and a 5-4 lead, bringing her coaching team to its feet and eliciting a roar from Petkovic that had been missing for much of the previous hour. An ace out wide consolidated the break and sent the match to a decider.
Ostapenko broke Petkovic twice in a row to begin the third set, racing out to a 4-1 advantage. Petkovic then won three straight games from 5-2 down in the final set as the higher-ranked Ostapenko squandered two match points when she was trying to serve out the match. The uncompromising Latvian, who finsihed with 60 errors, saved two break points at 5-5, whipping her hand and racquet above her head like a helicopter blade, before finally punching her pass to the second round on her fourth match point.
WHAT IT MEANS: The win improves Ostapenko's record against Petkovic to 2-0 after she won the only other meeting between the pair in the Doha semifinals in 2016.
It also advances the Latvian into the second round in New York for the third time in four US Open appearances, keeping her on track to match or improve upon her third-round appearance here last year, when she lost to Daria Kasatkina in the Round of 32.
For the 30-year-old Petkovic, it's a second-consecutive loss in the opening round — and fourth in her past seven trips to Flushing Meadows.
Ostapenko will now play Taylor Townsend for a place in the third round after the American defeated countrywoman Amanda Anisimova in three sets.
MATCH POINT: Few players rely on their first serve more than Ostapenko. When her serve's on, she's able to blitz through games and keep opponents on the back foot with a lethal one-two punch. On Tuesday, she failed to make even half of her first serves — she finished the match at 49 percent — but she won 69 percent of the points when she landed her first serve. By contrast, she won just 41 percent of points on her second serve.
