Magda Linette continued to be a thorn in the side of the big names on Tuesday, taking out No. 8 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova in the second round of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, 6-2, 4-6, 6-1.
After Linette raced out to a 6-2, 1-0 lead, Alexandrova caught fire, winning five games in a row to go up 5-1 in the second set. But Linette found her range again from there, winning the next three games, and although Alexandrova ended up closing out the set, the Polish No. 2 opened up a 5-0 lead in the third and served it out two games later.
“The plan was to kind of not let her lead because she can really take the racquet out of your hands,” Linette said in her on-court interview. “She can make you feel like you’re not able to really do anything. She can start playing so well that it feels really difficult to come back.
“But in the third set I started really well and kept it going.”
The key stat was unforced errors—Linette finished with almost half as many as Alexandrova, 25 to 46. She also had one more winner.
But there was one more stat of note—Linette’s win over the No. 12-ranked Alexandrova was the milestone 20th Top 20 win of her career.