The odds, of course, were all on No4 seed Agnieszka Radwanska’s side when she took on Briton Naomi Broady, ranked 82.
The nimble legs and quick hands of Radwanska have won her many fans in tennis for the variety of her game, intelligent tactics and lightness of touch. She has to be smart, she has said in the past, because I can’t win with power.
The Pole is a slight figure, and Broady, a slender woman too, had six inches in height over her opponent, but that meant little against a woman who has been a Wimbledon finalist, No2 in the world, and is the reigning WTA Champion. She also, with good timing, tops the US Open Series Bonus Challenge: the more matches she wins, the more bonus she earns.
This was the 27 year-old’s 11th straight appearance at the US Open, her 42nd consecutive Grand Slam. It was Broady’s first in New York, and she had already won her first main-draw match here, just her second Grand Slam match.
But as she said after beating Laura Robson in the first round, she is a player who has matured late—she is 26—and is still improving.
“Laura was a fantastic junior and I was not. I think in British tennis they like to say that you’re running out of time and you’re playing catch-up and if you’re not there by 18 then you’re behind everybody else, but tennis is becoming more of a longevity sport, and the average age of the top 100 is getting older. I think I was 25 when I broke into it this year.”
And the first set on Flushing’s second biggest court, Armstrong, proved that she has plenty of game, enough to live with some of the best on the circuit.
Indeed, it could not have been tighter, concluding in a tiebreak with 49 points apiece, but it was Radwanska who won the last two points.
It had looked as though Broady had the variety and the power to undermine Radwanska’s game, and the Briton played drop shots, lobs, off-backhand winners, chipped returns of serve, smashes… so like Radwanska that it made for hugely entertaining tennis.
Broady got the first break, and served for the set at 5-3, but all at once, nerves seemed to hit her. She double faulted, faced 0-40, and Radwanska put up a winning lob to break back.
The Briton clicked again at 6-5, and had a break point for the set with a couple of stunning slapped backhand winners, but a weak return of serve—one forehand chip too many—and the chance was gone.
Broady opened the tie-break with a double fault and netted the next point for 0-2, and Radwanska pulled off a running pass to huge cheers for 4-1. Broady continued her bold tactics, though, coming to the net at every opportunity. Sometimes it didn’t work, but it did work enough to level for 5-5.
That unconventional backhand brought up set point, and a big serve earned another. She just missed the baseline with another attempted volley pick-up, but aced at 8-8 for another bite of the cherry. Just as before, she attempted the sliced forehand return of serve, and her chance was snuffed out: Radwanska took the set, 7-6(9) after 69 minutes.
It was not done yet. Broady broke straight away in the second set, still attacking, and made a gutsy hold in the second, against two break points and five deuces, 2-0. But it would be her last real resistance as the errors began to outweigh the winners. From just 18 errors in the whole first set, she was up to 33 by the time Radwanska levelled at 4-3. Another break, and Radwanska was through to a meeting with the No25 seed, Caroline Garcia.
But the quality of the match, and the attack with which Broady took the match to her opponent shone out of the stats: She made 35 out of 57 net points—and Radwanska made 23/33; She also ended with 37 winners to 36 errors, but Radwanska made an exceptional 28 winners to only nine errors. Few women could have bettered that or the Pole.
It’s a style of tennis that she intends to cultivate: She knows her strengths.
“My problem is, I have so much to work on it’s just deciding which bits we’re going to start with. I’ve been working a lot in the gym—[smiling] I don’t know if you can see that, super muscley! It’s about getting the balance right as well, I need to play aggressive tennis. A few times in today’s match we had a few long rallies and I thought, ‘No you don’t want to out-rally these girls’.
“I’m going for the Isner and Karlovic approach. I need to keep working on my serve… People say I need to work on my movement but only in respect to my game. I don’t move the way Radwanska moves, and if I play my game I shouldn’t need too.”
She loves New York, she admitted, and will take in some sights and a show before she leaves. But watch out for her on the courts here next year, too.