Stosur crashes out of US Open

Casey Dellacqua has lived up to her newfound seeded status to reach the US Open third round for the first time – but Australia’s former champion Samantha Stosur is out.

While Dellacqua rallied for a 4-6 6-4 6-2 victory over Chinese qualifier Qiang Wang, Stosur blew a one-set buffer and two third-set match points to crash to a 3-6 6-3 7-6 (10-8) defeat at the hands of unseeded Estonian Kaia Kanepi.

Four years after ambushing Stosur in the first round at Wimbledon, Kanepi opened old wounds with another upset win over the 2011 Open champion.

Stosur appeared in command but lost her way in the second set, falling behind 5-0, and was unable to wrestle back control in another disappointing early exit from the New York grand slam.

The Queenslander bombed out in the opening round last year, falling to 17-year-old world No.296 Victoria Duval.

Dellacqua earlier overcame a one-set deficit, some dubious umpiring and 40 unforced errors to defeat Wang in a major breakthrough for the 29-year-old.

With her expected third-round opponent, Serbia eighth seed Ana Ivanovic, faltering, Dellacqua’s plucky win presented the West Australian with a big opportunity to make the last 16 at a major for the first time outside of Australia.

The free-swinging left-hander will play unseeded Karolina Pliskova on Saturday after the Czech upset Ivanovic 7-5 6-4 in their second-round contest on Thursday.

“I am not overly surprised she beat Ivanovic, to be honest,” Dellacqua said.

“I practiced with her the other day and she was playing great.

“In these conditions, I think having a big serve like that is massive and I am going to have to play really well in the next round to beat her.”

Seeded 29th after soaring 152 places up the world rankings in the past 12 months, Dellacqua had been favoured to make light work of Wang.

But she did anything but, losing the first set and struggling to make inroads on the world No.139’s serve until deep in the second set.

Dellacqua stood two games away from crashing out of the tournament until, out of nowhere, broke Wang from 30-0 down to snatch the second set.

It took two controversial line calls against her in the fourth game of the deciding set to wake Dellacqua from her slumber.

After smashing her racquet into the back fence in frustration, Dellacqua didn’t drop another game and wrapped up the match after one hour and 59 minutes.

“It probably made me switch on a bit,” Dellacqua said.

“It made me get a bit fired up, get a bit of energy going, get the feet going. It felt good.”

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