By Chris Oddo | Friday March 2, 2019
Photo: Guillermo Sanchez
Two of the most pleasant surprises of the 2019 tennis season thus far locked horns in a compelling battle in Acapulco, and it was the steely 20-year-old Sonya Kenin who came away with the win to reach the final, defeating 18-year-old Bianca Andreescu in a hard-fought battle, 6-4 3-6 7-5.
Both players have had breakthroughs in 2019, with Kenin claiming her first title in Hobart and climbing inside the Top 40 for the first time and Andreescu halving her ranking and reaching her first final in Auckland while also claiming the 125K title at Newport Beach.
The pair approach the game quite differently; Kenin is a more conventional baseline player that has long, sweeping strokes, while Andreescu is a wildly creative shotmaker that rarely hits the same shot twice and likes to really push to the edges of her creativity. Andreescu is a joy to watch and she's a truly unique player. Sometimes, however, the Canadian takes her artistry too far and tries for too much, or becomes discombobulated tactically, and it can hurt her.
On Friday night she hurt herself early and often, committing 50 unforced errors, but she frequently powered through her rough patches with brilliant play. There were a plethora of feathery drops shots and some insane crosscourt angles from Andreescu that were impossibly good.
Kenin, meanwhile, played it straight and steady and was mostly in the driver's seat in this match, particularly because Andreescu seemed a tad flat emotionally.
The Canadian was in danger of falling in straight sets but summoned a spark and turned the tide on Kenin late in the second set with a pair of consecutive breaks that put her in command.
She would seize her opportunity and force a decider.
More than anything Kenin demonstrated her positivity and willingness to compete over the course of the two hour and 14 minute contest, and that helped her in the third set, even when double-faults threatened to sabotage her best intentions (8 on the match and three in a really poor seventh game of the third set). She possessed the better body language and was more consistent in her approach. It paid dividends in a tight match and helped her push her way to the finish line.
The pair held serve through six games of the third set and then there was a trade of breaks that kept the battle fierce. Andreescu seemed to be wilting physically but she pulled it together to produce some magic when she needed it.
But the Canadian couldn’t take this one over the finish line and ended up getting broken while serving to stay alive at 5-6. Kenin converted her second match point when Andreescu lifted a backhand long, setting herself up for her second final of the season.
Her foe in the final will be first-time finalist Wang Yafan of China. The 24-year-old World No.65 rallied from a set down to take out third-seeded Donna Vekic 2-6 6-3 6-1.
The victory was Wang’s second-best by ranking of her career.