06 September,2021 07:07 AM IST | New York | Agencies
Ashleigh Barty reacts during her match against Shelby Rogers at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on Saturday. Pics/Getty Images
Top-ranked Ashleigh Barty crashed out of the US Open in the third round on Saturday, disappointed but ready to put defeat behind her and start planning for what comes next. The reigning Wimbledon champion won 11 of 14 games after dropping the first set, was then broken twice while serving for the match and eventually dropped a shocker to American Shelby Rogers 6-2, 1-6, 7-6 (7/5).
"It's never nice when you have a couple opportunities to serve out a match and can't get it done," Barty said. "Six in the third is brutal. It's a tough one to swallow. I found a way to really turn it in my favour and just wasn't able to just quite finish off. It's disappointing but we'll move on."
The Australian, 25, fell one round shy of matching her deepest US Open run. It's the only Slam where she hasn't reached the semi-finals. "I feel like the Slams you're kind of building up to it and afterwards there's a reset," Barty said.
"We reset now. We go back to the drawing board, work out what we want to do for the rest of the season." Barty won titles this year at Miami, Melbourne, Stuttgart and Cincinnati as well as her second Grand Slam crown despite being away from her homeland since February.
Novak Djokovic moved within four matches of completing the first men's singles calendar-year Grand Slam in 52 years on Saturday, rallying to beat Japan's Kei Nishikori.
Top-ranked Djokovic improved to 18-2 overall against Nishikori, taking his 17th consecutive victory in the rivalry by 6-7 (4/7), 6-3, 6-3, 6-2.
Wimbledon runner-up Matteo Barrettini, the Italian sixth seed, outlasted Ilya Ivashka of Belarus 6-7 (5/7), 6-2, 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 after three hours and 46 minutes to reach a Last-16 match with 144th-ranked German qualifier Oscar Otte, who beat Italy's Andreas Seppi 6-3, 6-4, 2-6, 7-5.
Meanwhile, veteran Indian tennis player Rohan Bopanna and his Croatian partner Ivan Dodig advanced to the men's doubles pre-quarterfinals with 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 win over the pair of Hugo Nys of Monaco and Arthur Rinderknech of France.
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