The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Connecticut Open: Viral illness claims another seed
Bertens latest to withdraw, 3rd seeded player to exit
NEW HAVEN — Bacteria or a fungus may kill a plant seed, but Connecticut Open seeds fall to viral illnesses.
A third seeded player withdrew from the tournament Tuesday morning when Kiki Bertens departed, citing a viral illness, as did sixth seed Ashleigh Barty on Saturday.
Top seed Simona Halep, whom Bertens beat Sunday in the final of the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati, Ohio, withdrew with a right Achilles injury on Monday.
Bertens’ withdrawal was announced not an hour before she was scheduled to play Anett Kontaveit, opening the day’s play on Stadium Court.
“I saw her in the hotel early, and she seemed good,” tournament director Anne Worcester said. “Sometimes players come here, and if they’re injured or they know they’re not going to play, first of all, they wouldn’t come.
“But she was headed to the practice court. She was a very early entry. She’s been on our entry list for months, and then she had this breakout summer. After 15 minutes, she couldn’t go on.”
Kontaveit beat Bertens’ replacement, Pauline Parmentier, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2. Belinda Bencic followed with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Camila Giorgi.
Bertens had not withdrawn from the doubles competition, at least as of Tuesday afternoon. Coincidentally, she and Johanna Larsson were supposed to meet Johanna Konta and Nicole Melichar in the first round of doubles; Konta withdrew from both events on Tuesday with a viral illness of her own.
“I don’t know if it’s exhaustion because of all the matches she’s played the last few weeks, and/or feeling she’s maybe getting sick, but she did say she wants to stay in doubles,” Worcester said of Bertens. “She said she slept 12 and a half hours last night, so I don’t know if it’s muscles or possibly getting sick, but she’s very much hoping to be in the doubles all week long.”
Bertens was the seventh seed at the Connecticut Open. She moved up to 13th in the world when she beat Halep on Sunday.
“I (am) really sorry for the fans, but hopefully I will be back next year,” Bertens said in a short video tweeted by the tournament.
Konta’s match against Carla Suarez Navarro might have been the most compelling of the day session, but she withdrew not long before that match, handing Suarez a walkover victory into the quarterfinals.
“Konta was so excited to be here,” Worcester said. “Her agent (Vicky Brook)
went to Yale. We’ve been talking about having her come all winter.
“She got hit by the same viral illness Ashleigh Barty got hit with coming out of Cincinnati.”
Though Konta’s secondround withdrawal led to the walkover, a first-round withdrawal allows the tournament to fill that spot with a “lucky loser,” a player who lost in qualifying. Three lucky losers wound up in the draw this week.
Kontaveit came from behind to beat one of them, 71st-ranked Parmentier.
“I was ready to play Kiki. We just played last week (a three-set Bertens win), and I had gone through the plan and everything with my coach,” Kontaveit said.
“Of course, if you’re playing a different player, it’s a totally different plan and everything. It’s last-minute changes, which are not always easy.”
Bencic not only replaced Halep, but also doubly lucked into the top seed’s first-round bye.
Giorgi, one of the five qualifiers who won a firstround match, broke Bencic four times in 10 service games, but Bencic broke Giorgi in six out of 10.
“It’s obviously very good I got to be in the second round, but if I don’t win, (that bye) doesn’t make a difference,” Bencic said. “In that way, it was very important to win.”
Sam Stosur, the other lucky loser, replaced Barty in the draw but fell to Aryna Sabalenka on Monday.
Kontaveit, who turns 23 in December, draws qualifier Monica Puig in the second round. They’ll meet for the first time.
Bencic moves on to the quarterfinals to meet either defending champion Daria Gavrilova, who was made a ninth seed after Barty’s withdrawal, or Sabalenka. Suarez Navarro will face either three-time tournament champion Petra Kvitova, the third seed, or qualifier Zarina Diyas.