US Open: Sabalenka brushes aside Burrage as 19 of 32 seeds make the third round

Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, the second seed, defeated Jodie Burrage 6-3, 6-2 to reach the third round of the US Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

It was a fairly quiet day with 11 of the 12 seeds in action on the women’s side advancing to the round of 32 with 25th seed Karolina Pliskova being the only one to fall, to Clara Burel, who is next up for the Australian Open champ Sabalenka.

19 of the 32 seeded players have made it to the third round in New York (eight in the top half and 11 in the bottom half). This includes all the top six seeds and eight of the top 10 seeds, with No 7 Caroline Garcia and No 8 Maria Sakkari failing to make it past the first round.

“I’m super happy with the level today, and super happy to get this win” – Sabalenka

Back to Sabalenka, the Belarusian was happier with her performance on Thursday as compared to her first-round win. “I’m super happy with the level today, and super happy to get this win. I think I played really solid today and didn’t lose my focus not for a moment. It definitely was great match from me. In the first match, first, I don’t know how many games, I didn’t feel well. It was super humid. I was sweating a lot, and the towels didn’t really work well for me. So I keep sweating and couldn’t hold my racquet. I was really struggling and couldn’t serve. It was kind of like fun but not really (smiling). I’m glad that my team had some towels for me, so after I start using better towels I start feeling better,” the Belarusian said.

“I controlled better my serve, controlled myself better today. And it wasn’t that humid today, so… But I was prepared. I bring, like, white towels on the match, so I was prepared for whatever.”

The Belarusian won against Belgian Maryna Zanevska (6-3, 6-2) in the previous round of the Flushing Meadow tournament.

During the first round of the Flushing Meadow tournament, Burrage, ranked No 96, won against Russian Anna Blinkova (6-3, 6-4).

New York (Grand Slam), other second-round results (USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, hard, USD 44.700.000, most recent results first):

• Patricia Maria Tig vs. Jessica Pegula
• Daria Kasatkina vs. Sofia Kenin
• Greet Minnen vs. Sachia Vickery
• Ons Jabeur vs. Linda Noskova
• Petra Martic vs. Marie Bouzkova
• Elina Svitolina vs. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
• Yanina Wickmayer vs. Madison Keys
• Martina Trevisan vs. Marketa Vondrousova
• Ekaterina Alexandrova vs. Lesia Tsurenko: thursday
• Clara Burel beat Karolina Pliskova (25): 6-4, 6-2
• Liudmila Samsonova (14) beat Tamara Korpatsch: 6-3, 6-3
• Lucia Bronzetti beat Eva Lys (Q): 6-3, 6-2
• Qinwen Zheng (23) beat Kaia Kanepi: 6-2, 3-6, 6-2
• Peyton Stearns beat Clara Tauson: 6-3, 6-0
• Katie Boulter beat Yafan Wang (Q): 5-7, 6-1, 6-4
• Caroline Wozniacki (WC) beat Petra Kvitova (11): 7-5, 7-6 (5)
• Jelena Ostapenko (20) beat Elina Avanesyan: 6-3, 5-7, 7-5
• Jennifer Brady beat Magda Linette (24): 6-1, 2-6, 6-2
• Elena Rybakina vs. Ajla Tomljanovic
• Bernarda Pera beat Xiyu Wang: 3-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2
• Lin Zhu beat Victoria Azarenka (18): 6-3, 6-3
• Sorana Cirstea (30) beat Anna Kalinskaya: 6-3, 6-4
• Iga Swiatek (1) beat Daria Saville: 6-3, 6-4
• Karolina Muchova (10) beat Magdalena Frech: 6-3, 6-3
• Anna Karolina Schmiedlova beat Rebeka Masarova: 7-6, 6-2
• Xinyu Wang beat Sara Sorribes Tormo: 5-7, 6-3, 6-4
• Coco Gauff (6) beat Mirra Andreeva: 6-3, 6-2
• Belinda Bencic (15) beat Yuriko Miyazaki (Q): 6-3, 6-3
• Kaja Juvan (Q) beat Lauren Davis: 6-7 (3), 6-4, 6-3
• Taylor Townsend beat Beatriz Haddad Maia (19): 7-6 (1), 7-5
• Elise Mertens (32) beat Danielle Collins: 3-6, 7-6 (7), 6-1