No. 4 seed, Jelena Jankovic once again lost her bid to win her first Grand Slam when she was defeated by No. 31 seed, Kaia Kanepi in round 3 at the 2010 U.S. Open.
Although Hurricane Earl didn’t bring much rain to the New York area, the remnants of the storm brought wind gusts of up to 33 mph that were playing havoc with the players â starting with Jankovic, who lost 6-2, 7-6 (1) to Kanepi.
Jankovic, a finalist at the 2008 U.S. Open, struggled with the wind. She framed shots, splayed backhands, missed service tosses, yelled to herself and told her playersâ box that she just could not do a thing. At one point she hit a serve so badly the ball went way up into the stands. “You toss the ball, and it was all over the place,” Jankovic said. “And then you hit the ball one direction, it goes another. You’re just getting ready to hit the ball and it just moves away from you.”
Kanepi played under the same conditions but handled them less emotionally. She was serving for the match at 5-3 in the second set before faltering a bit. Jankovic broke serve, then held, then broke again to go up 6-5. Kanepi broke back to force the tie-break which she won 7-1.
âI donât think it was because of the wind, it was because of the mind,â Kanepi said with a smile. âYou just have to let the emotions go.â
Coming off a quarterfinal appearance at Wimbledon, Kanepi has surged in the world rankings to No. 32 from No. 140 in May. This is the deepest Kanepi has advanced at the Open.
