Iva Jovic of the U.S. reacts during her fourth round match against Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva. Photo: REUTERS
MELBOURNE:
American 18-year-old Iva Jovic dished out a dominant 6-0 6-1 win over Yulia Putintseva in just 53 minutes at the Australian Open on Sunday to reach the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam for the first time.
Fans at John Cain Arena had barely settled in as 29th seed Jovic swept aside Putintseva in a display of precision and relentless pressure.
“Obviously, the scoreline is favourable but it doesn’t matter how you get it done,” Jovic said on court.
“I just wanted to get it done and I felt like if I let her come back a little bit, it would become a dogfight. So I just tried to keep it as far away as possible and just so happy to be in the quarter-finals.”
Jovic set the tone from the first game, dictating play with clean winners off both wings while Putintseva struggled to find any rhythm, plagued by a cascade of errors.
Putintseva, who had taunted a raucous crowd of Turkish supporters after winning her last match, won only nine points in a brutal opening set, handing it to the American with a double fault on set point.
Her frustration began to boil over in the second set as she glared at her team while Jovic continued to rack up games, though the Kazakh player could not help but smile when she finally got on the board to make it 4-1.
However, Putintseva handed Jovic victory with her 19th unforced error on match point.
Up next for Jovic is a quarter-final against top seed and twice champion Aryna Sabalenka.
“I’m just going to try to keep taking care of my side of the net. Obviously she’s number one for a reason and had so much success at this tournament, but that’s what I want,” Jovic said.
“I said it last year. I hope to be able to play her this year because you definitely want to play the best and see how it goes.”
