Now on Diana’s path is an old acquaintance. Will she have enough strength for another sensation after such exhaustion?
Diana Yastremska has successfully started her campaign at the prestigious WTA 1000 tournament in the USA. The Ukrainian tennis player clinched victory in a tough three-set battle against local favorite Ashlyn Krueger.
RBC-Ukraine reports this, citing the tournament results.
Also read: Svitolina pushes out Russian, and Kalinina breaks records: how the WTA world ranking has changed
Dramatic finale and willpower victory
The start of the match was unfortunate for the Ukrainian: she lost the first set 2-6. However, in the second set, Diana managed to seize the initiative, converting two break points to win 6-4.
The most tense part of the game was the final segment. In the deciding set, with the score at 4-5, Yastremska found herself one step away from defeat but managed to save three match points in a row.
After that, she won a game on her opponent’s serve and closed the match with a score of 7-5, avoiding a tiebreak.
Statistics and historical context
For Yastremska, this is her third career appearance in the second round of the tournament in Miami (previously occurring in 2019 and 2024).
This season, it is already the fifth time the Ukrainian has overcome the opening barrier at WTA tournaments.
Before this, she had only once in 2026 managed to go beyond the second round – at the Brisbane competition.
Diana became the second representative of Ukraine to advance to the next stage in Miami through the first round filter.
Earlier, Yulia Starodubtseva achieved this, marking her debut success at the “thousand” level.
What awaits the Ukrainians in the second round
In the next stage of the competition, Ukraine will be represented by four tennis players. Along with Yastremska and Starodubtseva, Elina Svitolina and Marta Kostyuk, who received seeded status and skipped the first round, will join them.
Diana’s next opponent will be the tournament’s 25th seed, Jelena Ostapenko from Latvia.
This will be their fourth meeting on the court, with the head-to-head record currently standing at 2-1 in favor of the Latvian.
Schedule of matches for Ukrainian tennis players in the second round:
- Elina Svitolina (Ukraine, 9) – Emerson Jones (Australia)
- Diana Yastremska (Ukraine) – Jelena Ostapenko (Latvia, 25)
- Marta Kostyuk (Ukraine, 27) – Kamilla Rahimova (Uzbekistan)
- Yulia Starodubtseva (Ukraine) – Cristina Bucsa (Spain, 30)
Earlier, we wrote about how the Ukrainian set a tennis record that Svitolina could not achieve.
