Yastremska Becomes Youngest Ukrainian to Break into Top 40

The WTA has refreshed the list of the world’s top female tennis players for the 2019 tennis season. The latest edition includes three athletes from Ukraine, namely Elina Svitolina, Lesya Tsurenko and Dayana Yastremska are on the list, actually in the Top 40.

While Svitolina remains 7th and Tsurenko comes 24th on the ranking, 18-year-old Yastremska also made it to the upper part of the list in 34th.

Most recently, the rising star of Ukrainian tennis, Yastremska triumphed in WTA Thailand Open. The rival of young Ukrainian was Croatian tennis player Ajla Tomljanović. In the first two sets, the athletes exchanged confident victories. The things changed in the decisive third set. In the beginning, Yastremska lost three of her four services, losing 2:5, but was able to bring the match to a tiebreaker, in which she gave her rival only one inning.

Svitolina, on the other hand, lost the quarterfinal game of the Australian Open to Naomi Osaka. The Japanese player eventually won the tournament and become World Number 1 in the process.

The WTA Thailand Open was being held in the city of Hua Hin. In the first two sets the athletes exchanged confident victories. Then things changed in the decisive third set, in Yastremska’s favour. At the beginning, Yastremska lost three of her four services, losing 2: 5, but was able to bring the match to a tiebreaker, in which she gave her rival only one inning.

She had 53 unforced errors, more than her 33 winners, but Tomljanovic only fired seven winners in the match. In the end, the Croatian was undone at the very end by 32 unforced errors. The players had seven breaks of service each, and ended the evenly-matched clash with the exact same number of points won by both, 97.

For the 18-year-old Dayana Yastremska, the victory in Thailand was the second major win in her career. Last year, she won the Hong Kong tournament defeating Qiang Wang.