Anna Kalinskaya, pride reaction in the most difficult moment

After the painful defeat in the final in Washington (after still having played an excellent tournament that allowed her to recover as many as 17 positions in the ranking), Anna Kalynskaya returns to winning and does so in the first round of the WTA 1000 in Montreal: the Moscow tennis player beats in fact in three sets the U.S. Ann Li, thus qualifying for the 32nd final.

For Kalinskaya the match against the world number 59 was by no means easy: after winning 7-6 the first set (8-6 was the tie-break score), the Russian athlete suffered a clear 6-0 loss in the second fraction, a very difficult moment that continued also in the third set in which Li took a 2-0 lead.

At that moment, however, the 26-year-old’s pride reaction was triggered, and she won five consecutive games before breathing for a moment at 5-2 and finally closing the match in the ninth game: 7-6(6), 0-6, 6-3, therefore, the final score in favor of Anna Kalinskaya, who will face Belgium’s Elise Mertens in the second round.

There are two previous matches between Kalinskaya, number 31 in the WTA rankings, and Mertens, who occupies box number 19 in the rankings: on both occasions it was the Russian who celebrated, winning 6-4, 0-6, 7-5 in the round of 16 at Guadalajara 2022 and 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 at the Internazionali d’Italia in 2023, when the two athletes met in the 32nd round.