Cincinnati, Lucia Bronzetti ahead with heartbeat: winning marathon

It wasn&#8217t an easy success that of Lucia Bronzetti in Cincinnati against China&#8217s Zhu Lin, today number 304 in the WTA ranking but only two years ago a stable presence among the top 50: in the first round of the cement competition, the Italian (number 61 WTA) got the better of three sets, two of which were hard-fought: 6-7(6), 6-2, 7-6(6) the final score.

The match came close to 3 hours and 40 total, with the first and third sets lasting one’hour and 14 minutes and one’hour and 32 minutes, respectively. In the first set, Bronzetti nullified two set points before succumbing in the third, while in the third (reached thanks to Zhu’s empty passage in the middle set), the Romagna native found herself having to nullify a match point before prevailing 8-6 in the tie-break.

For Bronzetti it is the fourth consecutive one with at least one round overcome: at Wimbledon she beat Jil Teichmann before bowing out to Mirra Andreeva, at the Bastaad Challenger she overcame Linea Bajraliu and Jule Niemeier before surrendering to Antonia Ruzic, while in Montreal she beat Elizabeth Mandlik only to go out in the next round against Clara Tauson.

In the second round of the Cincinnati tournament, Lucia Bronzetti will face the tournament&#8217s No. 15 seed, Daria Kasatkina: the athlete who competes under the Australian flag, after representing Russia until 2022 and playing without a flag from there until early 2025, was able to take advantage of a ‘bye’ which allowed her to skip the first round, as could all 32 seeded players.