The Ukrainian is an exceptional mover as well as an inventive shotmaker, a combination that makes her one of the more watchable players on tour. Kostyuk may no longer celebrate titles with acrobatic backflips as she did early in her career, but this athleticism still clearly shines through in her game. Kostyuk had previously reached four tour-level semifinals without advancing further.īut that changed this month in Austin, where she went all the way to her first WTA title – a result helping her crack the world’s top 40. Kostyuk certainly hasn’t stopped in 2023, winning 15 of 21 matches and beating quality opponents such as Elena Rbyakina, Danielle Collins and Amanda Anisimova. “It left a footprint on my brain, and was motivating me not to stop,” she said of watching Raducanu complete that extraordinary run in New York. Then there was her 57-minute, 6-2 6-1 thrashing of reigning US Open Emma Raducanu in late 2021 in Romania. The biggest of those was 12th seed Garbine Muguruza in the first round at Roland Garros, kick-starting a run to the fourth round – her best Grand Slam result so far. She truly turned a corner in 2021, cracking the top 50, going deeper more often at WTA-level events, and beating bigger names. Coming back from such a big fall, you really realise … I was taking things for granted.” “Now I realise that I need to put so much work in it. It's like I was the first one (of my age group) who broke through, and I was the first one who fell,” Kostyuk told WTA Insider in Madrid 2019. “I had this pressure last year and I went too crazy about that. Six months later, she was barely inside the top 300.
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