Angie KERBER 🎾 practice preview (R1) 🗽 US OPEN 2020

#NewYorkTough

"It's important not to look back too much. It's more important being in the moment."
— 2016 US Open champion Angelique Kerber

*** 2016 US Open Champion Angelique Kerber defeated world No. 57 Ajla Tomljanovic, 6-4, 6-4, to move on to the second round of the 2020 US Open.

“I’m just trying to enjoy the tennis as much as I can right now,” Kerber said after the match, her first one back after the hiatus. “

You don’t really have expectations of yourself, you don’t know where you are and how you [will] make the transition to the match court, which is always a little different than just practicing. Right now for me...it’s about being in the moment, here.”

Even a psychic would have had trouble discerning which way this match would go, considering the lack of recent data from both athletes. Kerber was one of the rare top players to skip the Cincinnati warm-up event in New York and had an inauspicious start to the season before the shutdown, picking up a leg injury while taking early-round losses in Brisbane and Adelaide. (She did reach the second week at the Australian Open.)

Tomljanovic, on the other hand, looked in-form in a few stateside exhibitions over the summer but lost both of the matches she played since returning to the tour, in Lexington and Cincinnati.

Still, in the early going, Kerber seemed completely undaunted by both her lack of match play and her opponent. Although her serve wasn’t clicking initially—the opponents traded breaks twice to start the contest— Kerber showed she was willing to run down every ball as she typically does. She was also committed to stepping in and opening up the court with her forehand when she had the opportunity, which is what she typically does when her game is firing. Tomljanovic proved she could hang with the No. 17 seed during the initial punishing rallies, as both players scurried side to side, each finding ways to turn defense into offense. At 4-4, though, the three-time major champion raised her level and won eight straight points—one in which she displayed remarkable speed chasing a Tomljanovic dropshot —to claim the first set.

In the second set, Kerber really began to find her range, and Tomljanovic, feeling the pressure, started to go for too much—and miss. The German broke her opponent twice, and although she gave one break back while serving for the match, she was able to serve it out on her second opportunity.

WHAT IT MEANS: During the hiatus, Kerber reunited with Torben Beltz, the coach who was an instrumental part of her team during her huge 2016 season. This match made it seem like the renewed partnership could prove quite fruitful.

“It’s actually nice to have someone who I really know, who knows me, who knows my game [works], and how to improve my game as well,” Kerber said after her victory. “So we are speaking the same language. He’s known me since I was 16, 17.”

The German next faces compatriot Anna-Lena Friedsam, and could take on her 2016 US Open championship opponent Karolina Pliskova in the fourth round. Kerber holds a 7-5 edge over this year’s No. 1 seed, though the Czech player has won their last two meetings.

MATCH POINT: So much for first-match nerves. Kerber converted 100% of her break points today, going 5 for 5.