Svitolina wins on Buzarnescu retirement at Rogers Cup
A terrible ending came to what was a tight race to the finish at the Rogers Cup in Montreal. Mihaela Buzarnescu suffered an injury to her right ankle that forced her to retire from play giving Elina Svitolina the 6-3, 6-7(5), 4-3 advance to the third round on Banque Nationale court at IGA Stadium.
The Romanian began another chapter of her dominance after winning the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic by showing she had plenty of energy to take down her first round opponent. The world number 20 had to play a longer second set than the first but earned the result to put her head to head with the Ukrainian for the third time. She has yet to lose to the world number five and would try to add another surface win to the French Open and Birmingham victories under her belt. Svitolina chose Montreal to be her starting point to the second half of the hard court tour but getting Buzarnescu as her opening round match had to be put in the back of her mind while she hunted down a way to defeat her.
Svitolina came out scoring three straight points before Buzarnescu gained two before hitting the ball too hard on game point giving the Ukrainian the first victory. Gaining a second against the Romanian put her in a great spot to dictate early and get a marginal lead. She made it 4-0 easily as Buzarnescu still couldn’t get her serve together with the return suffering in the process. She somehow turned things around in the fifth where she broke Svitolina to get on the board.
She added a second with her service game slightly improving cutting Svitolina's lead in half after six. The 23-year-old regained some ground scoring a serve to love against Buzarnescu moving closer to going a set up. She had a 30-0 lead on the Romanian but watched her come back to force deuce where she won the game on the third break landing a clean winner across to Svitolina.
It was becoming apparent that Buzarnescu was on a mission to make a break back to level the score with the Ukrainian who let up just enough. She didn’t let that happen anymore in the ninth where she gained two set points before getting done on a return landing long to secure the 1-0 run after 32 minutes. Buzarnescu had 14 unforced errors in the set that cancelled out her success of landing more winners than the Ukrainian. With time to regain a footing in the match, the Romanian had to show more control and power to get an edge going forward.
She held serve with Svitolina in the second set leading the way in the third with the second hold of serve. They remained that way through five where Buzarnescu was gaining some momentum being on top of Svitolina in the set. The world number five played defensively when behind in the sixth forcing deuce with the Romanian to try and contain service. She got out of the jam with another long ball from Buzarnescu. The Romanian answered with a hold of serve that had her back to level terms and remained that way through ten when she forced Svitolina to act by holding service to play the set on. She continued to match the Romanian that led them to a tiebreak where she marked the first point for herself.
She gained a couple more points to lead Buzarnescu 4-2 in what was looking to be a successful way of defeating the 30-year-old. It didn’t go that way after all as Buzarnescu rallied back to level at five all before getting the set point that she put down with a winner beating Svitolina to go to a decider after 54 minutes. She had 19 winners and 16 unforced errors while serving at 71 percent. Svitolina didn’t do a lot wrong in the second where she finished with more than 80 percent points won on the first serve.
With no choice but to play on, she found herself in trouble with Buzarnescu earning the break before consolidating it with the hold in the second. She took a 3-0 lead that made it seem like she would be on a one-way course to victory. Svitolina brushed off the struggles she had gaining back all the lost ground to even the score at three-all with Buzarnescu. She made it four straight as the leverage was rising in the hands of Svitolina leading the Romanian to call for her coach to give some advice.
As the seventh game progressed, Svitolina had the lead but as Buzarnescu went for the ball, she injured her ankle and writhed in pain for minutes sending both the umpire and Svitolina to her attention. The physio came out to check out the injury to her right leg and with her still in an immense amount of pain, the match was brought to a close with her unfortunate retirement. Buzarnescu was helped onto a wheelchair and assisted off the court.
With the match concluding by default, Svitolina would move into the round of 16 facing the winner between Victoria Azarenka and Johanna Konta.