PETE ZIEBRON
Alize Cornet on her way to the the Cincinnati Main Draw
Alize Cornet narrowly missed out on direct entry into the Cincinnati main draw. Instead, she was the #1 seed in qualifying and impressively powered her way through two matches to earn her way into the Western & Southern Open main draw.
On Sunday, Cornet dropped just four games in dispatching young American Sofia Kenin 6-1 6-3 in seventy minutes. The Frenchwoman won the opening game of the match at love and then Kenin double faulted three times in her first service game to gift the game to Cornet. The fourth game of the set would be the only one that Kenin would win as Cornet served at 80% first service percentage to wrap up the set in just 21 minutes.
Games Won in Qualifying
Alize Cornet 24
Opponents 7
The start of the second set had a significantly different feel as all three of the opening games went to deuce. Kenin held to open the set and the broke Cornet on her third break opportunity in the second game. Next, the American threw away a 40-15 lead by dropping the next two points before winning the next two to march to a 3-0 lead.
That would be the last game that Cornet would fail to win in the match as she rolled in the next six games, winning all of them and outscoring Kenin 26-11 to claim the match and entry into the main draw.
On Saturday, Cornet dropped just three games against American Nicole Gibbs and won seven consecutive games in the match. With Gibbs serving at 2-1 in the opening set, Cornet broke back and proceeded to break the American the next three times while concurrently holding serve three times. Although her winning streak ended when she was serving at 2-0 in the second set, Cornet won the final four games of the match to advance to the second round of qualifying.
Next up for Alize Cornet will be 2017 Roland Garros Champion and the #11 seed Jelena Ostapenko. The match will be the second night contest on Grandstand Court following Stan Wawrinka and Diego Schwartzman.
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