Iga Swiatek struggled into the last 16 of the US Open on Saturday, recovering from a rocky start to edge past Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya.<\/p>\n
Polish second seed Swiatek — the pre-tournament betting favourite — found herself in trouble in the opening set as the 29th-seeded Kalinskaya raced into a 5-1 lead.<\/p>\n
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But Swiatek clawed her way back into the contest to complete a 7-6 (7\/2), 6-4 victory on the Arthur Ashe Stadium court.<\/p>\n
Even Swiatek was at a loss to explain how she turned around her poor start.<\/p>\n
“Oh my god I don’t know — Anna was playing great, she was playing all these risky balls in,” she said. “I just wanted to make less mistakes. I felt like I was playing good but in the last shot I just couldn’t finish it.<\/p>\n
“I just focused on simple things … I felt like I had nothing to lose because I was losing pretty bad. So in the end I just went for it because what else can you do?”<\/p>\n
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Swiatek looked out of sorts almost from the outset, struggling to find fluency on serve and making a stream of unforced errors.<\/p>\n
She went 2-1 down after being broken in the third game, and Kalinskaya soon had Swiatek in trouble again in the fifth.<\/p>\n
A nervy double-fault at break point from Swiatek handed the Russian a 4-1 lead, which duly became 5-1 when she held in the next game.<\/p>\n
But serving for the set at 5-2 up, Kalinskaya suddenly froze to let Swiatek back into the match, squandering four set points before being broken.<\/p>\n
Swiatek broke again to level it at 5-5 and the momentum appeared to be with the Pole.<\/p>\n
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Yet there was another twist as the two players swapped breaks of serve to set up a tiebreak, which Swiatek won comfortably.<\/p>\n
The second set opened with both players again trading breaks of serve. The set went with serve until Swiatek seized the initiative in the ninth game to break for a 5-4 lead.<\/p>\n
A whipped Swiatek forehand set up match point, which the Pole converted when Kalinskaya yanked a return wide.<\/p>\n
Swiatek will face Russian 13th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova in the fourth round on Monday.<\/p>\n
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