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Monica Puig earned an important win to contain her streak at the Telcel Mexican Open on Monday night. Despite neither one playing strong tennis, the Puerto Rican got the better of Maria Sakkari to win 7-5, 4-6, 6-0 on Cancha Central at the Acapulco Fairmont Princess Hotel.
The two met last year for the first time last season with the Puerto Rican winning in straight sets with a late surge from the Greek. Since then, Sakkari has been on a slow incline to vie for her first WTA Title. It has been better than the 25-year-old who hasn’t had anything remotely consistent in the win column. With a warmup before the year’s first premier mandatory, Puig can make a serious statement to keep the 23-year-old at bay.
After Sakkari’s opening service game, Puig followed it up with a push before it nearly slipped away. She never gave the Greek a shot at the AD point to get back on track fast. They remained on serve through four until problems from Sakkari led to a triple break and the lead. Just when it looked as if a hold would come to her, the 25-year-old double-faulted for the first time leading to a downfall of serves. Errors rattled Puig to give Sakkari the break back and keep the set close.
Puig nailed down the double on the 23-year-old before strongly consolidating a hold in the eight putting the set within reach. Sakkari got under serious pressure but somehow saved a break point to force a deuce. With a break of Puig’s AD point chance, she gained a second break to stay alive and try to force the set forward. Puig wanted none of that and went after the set on serve with heavy opposition. Sakkari gained a break point but lost her chance to allow Puig to force a deuce. They went seven breaks and 13 minutes with Puig saving six break points but not the seventh as the return went wide setting up extra frames.
With another run of break backs, Puig made sure that she regained control on the score gaining the critical edge on Sakkari before securing the 11th before serving for the set again. A conference call with coach Kamau Murray saw him keep Puig’s confidence in line to get her across the line. She put together an excellent service game where she achieved three set points to blank Sakkari bringing the set to a close after 61 minutes.
It was clear that both had a struggling start to the match where each committed three double faults and more than a dozen unforced errors. With time to recover for the Greek, Puig had to find a way to continue her late run of success from the previous set. She couldn’t do that as Sakkari secured the hold of serve before shutting out Puig for a 2-0 lead. Sakkari increased her lead to three on a hard-fought service game after the Puerto Rican forced deuce. The 23-year-old denied her opportunities through the three breaks play to be in command.
The winning streak came to an end as Puig’s serve pulled out a victory before putting down a break in the fifth to cut the margin significantly. Murray was called for Puig with Sakkari calling down coach Tom Hill who told her how to adjust with the ball back in hand for the sixth. She gained a break to open the gap between Puig and herself hoping to make a third set possible. The double faults were rattling both players once again leading to a break for Puig to sit a game down after seven.
She contained the serve to level the score at four apiece putting Sakkari in a tense position with her game not strong enough. With a late mistake from Puig in the ninth, Sakkari earned another chance at forcing a decider but would have to trouble Puig on serve. Earning great court position on the returns, the 23-year-old reached three set points on a wide hit back from Puig ending the second in 48 minutes.
Both players left the court to briefly regroup before they got into it with Sakkari holding a slight advantage winning the last six points. While it didn’t improve minimizing the unforced errors her opponent was having the same problem indicating that it would not be a runaway for either one of them. Puig started the third with a break answering her after 15-all due to errors from the forehand. She consolidated it with a hold in the second after three breaks in yet another messy moment by the Puerto Rican.
Sakkari let a hold slip away in the third going to deuce where she lost the AD point and got into another three-game hole. She suffered another loss with Puig on serve that turned the decider into a runaway. A breakdown of the Greek star handed Puig a 5-0 run with the opportunity to hand Sakkari a bagel and exit from the tournament. The 23-year-old attempted to avoid the shutout with a 40-0 run until Puig closed the gap to force deuce. Three was a charm for the reigning Olympic champion as she gained a second match point to win after 2 hours and 34 minutes.
With her fifth straight opening round win in the tournament, she’ll try to reach the quarterfinal battling against Yafan Wang on Wednesday.
