Kristina Mladenovic has been going through an extremely rough patch in her tennis career, not having won a match since the Citi Open in Washington DC in August, but even though the Frenchwoman today suffered her tenth consecutive loss by falling to Aliaksandra Sasnovich in the second round of the VTB Kremlin Cup, her Top 10 WTA ranking debut will be actualized on Monday.
Following her second-round loss in Washington, Mladenovic has lost as many as nine openers, an average ranking of her last ten conquerors being 77, while today against the world No.100 Sasnovich, despite landing only 49% of first serves in, the Frenchwoman did do something positive — she ended an 19-set losing streak by falling to the Belarusian in three sets, 6-2 2-6 6-2. Another consolation for the VTB Kremlin Cup’s top seed Mladenovic could be that all the four players who enjoyed first-round byes bowed out of the tournament on Wednesday, as second seed Coco Vandeweghe lost to Lesia Tsurenko 7-5 1-6 6-2, third seed Elena Vesnina fell to fellow Russian Natalia Vikhlyantseva 7-6(3) 6-4, and fourth seed Anastasija Sevastova was ousted by Irina-Camelia Begu 6-4 6-3.
Despite the nosedive, overall Mladenovic has still enjoyed her best season, with the St. Petersburg title, the finals of Acapulco, Stuttgart and Madrid, the Indian Wells semis and the Roland Garros quarterfinals. Moreover, the 24-year-old is the first alternate for the WTA Finals in Singapore.
God, thats tragic. Such a mess
Well, Kiki lost her motivation in the middle of the year. I think she’ll be able to bounce back soon. Welcome to Top 10.