Luckiest Loser reaches fourth round

Germany’s Eva Lys was almost on her way home after losing her third round qualifying match to Australia’s Destanee Aiva.

Canberra: 5 January 2023 -Germany’s Eva Lys in a quarter final match at the Canberra International tournament. Photo by Rob Keating, http://robiciatennisphotography.com

The German did however decide to hang around and register to be a lucky loser. Just when it looked like she wouldn’t been given another chance a last minute call came through to take the spot of 13-seed Anna Kalinskaya, just 10-minutes before the match.

“I didn’t have time to get nervous,” Lys said after her here-we-go, first-round win over Kimberly Birrell, 6-2, 6-2.

Lys would next win her second round match against Varvara Gracheva from France, winning 6-2, 3-6, 6-4.

Next, the 23-year-old German would be in a match against Romania’s Jaqueline Cristian, the world no. 82.

Lys went into the third round match with a 3-0 head-to-head record against her opponent. Each victory came after the German lost the first set.

The Lucky Loser started well as she took the opening game, but from there it was the Romanian that took control of the first set. Cristian broke in the third game to lead 2-1.

Cristian held comfortably to consolidate her break and take a 3-1 lead.

In a tightly-contested game, Cristian breaks Lys’s serve to take a commanding 4-1 lead in the opening set. The Romanian displayed impressive resilience, battling through several lengthy rallies and fending off Lys’s attempts to regain momentum. 

Lys would finally break her opponent to be serving at 2-4, an easy hold and it was 4-3. The German had break back points but Cristian fought off the breaks to move to 5-3.

A pair of service holds saw the Romanian take the first set as she had done the previous three times the pair had faced each other.

This time the stakes were so much higher than ever before. A spot in the fourth round of a Grand Slam was up for grabs. Lys would also jump into the top-100 for the first time with a win.

As she had done in the first set, Lys would easily win the opening game of set no. 2. This time Lys would back up the opening game with a break for her to lead 2-0.

Another break would follow and it was back on serve.

Lys would get a crucial break in the next game after Cristian double faulted at 30-40. Lys took control with a love service hold and she now was leading 4-1.

Games went with serve and Lys served to love to claim the second set 6-3.

Cristian landed just 29% of first serves in the second set, a terrible stat.

In the third set Lys served at 84% and won 81% of points on the first serve. Lys even won 3 from 3 of second serve points.

The German was in control in the third set and hit 9 winner to 4. The unforced errors were 10 to the German and 13 to the Romanian.

Lys immediately had her higher ranked opponent under pressure when she broke in the opening game.

The German was barely troubled on her serve and after holding until the 8th game she broke Cristian in the ninth game to claim a memorable 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory.

Two years ago Lys passed through Canberra when she competed in the Canberra International, losing in a quarter final match to Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko. She was ranked at no. 127. Since that time Lys would flirt with a top-100 breakthrough, but never could crack the top-100.

The closest she got was no. 105 back in September 2024. If going home without the Lucky Loser, Lys was sitting at around no. 130 in the rankings, suddenly she is now no. 91 on the live rankings and she has a match against world no. 2 Iga Swiatek in the fourth round.

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