Jennifer Brady battled bravely, but Donna Vekic beat the American in the first round of the Cincinnati Masters.
Jennifer Brady returned to Cincinnati by playing another very close and physical match at the WTA 1000 event. She didn't play tennis for a long time but has been playing quite a lot since her comeback, with every match being a nail-biter. The opponent was Donna Vekic, a familiar player whom she faced twice so far.
Vekic won the first on clay in Rome many years ago, but Brady won the most recent one at the 2021 Australian Open in Melbourne. It was all Vekic early on as the Croatian jumped out to an early lead though Brady battled back.
While she's only 3-3 on her comeback so far, the American rarely loses a match easily. It always comes after a lot of battling and battle they did. It was 4-3 for Vekic in the tiebreak when she finally pulled away to win the set.
The second one opened as a tight battle, even though we saw a break in the opening game. Brady broke Vekic and then got broken to keep the score neutral at 1-1. Vekic served noticeably better in this one as Brady struggled with her serve.
It was a problem for the American because she found better solutions in rallies, but the serve remained missing, which likely was the x-factor she needed. It proved pretty costly late in the second set when she earned that elusive break to go up 5-4, only to fail in an attempt to serve out the match.
Vekic bounced back nicely, applying heavy pressure and ultimately getting it done 7-5 in the final set. A good effort from Brady but one ace and seven doubles faults were not good. Hitting the first serve only 56 % of the time wasn't good enough, and that cost her.
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