Teenie Marta Kostyuk’s triumphal march in Stuttgart is over. The 15-year-old qualifier from Ukraine lost in the round of 16 against Caroline Garcia (France) in 1:41 hours with 1:6, 6:3, 5:7.
Two days earlier, Kostyuk had already demonstrated her great potential in her win over wildcard owner Antonia Lottner and won her first match ever in a WTA tournament.
In the duel with Garcia, nine years older, Kostyuk had a long dream of a big surprise on Court 1. In the end, the favourite managed the break to win the match. Overall, the Garcia made nine points and two breaks more than the world rankings-158th with star potential.
Kostyuk was the youngest player in the Swabian metropolis since Martina Hingis won a main round match in 1994. But who has experienced the election Zagreb in January at the Australian Open, is no longer surprised about the steep rise of Kostyuk, who due to her age may play only twelve tournaments at the highest level (thus WTA and Grand Slam events) per year. In the new year of life there are already 16 tournaments.
In Melbourne, she was the youngest player in 22 years to reach the third round. What was connected with a rain of money (113,647 US dollars) for the 15-year-old. To put it in context: In the first two weeks of the season she, then number 518 in the world, earned just 228 US dollars (!).
Also Down Under Kostyuk, who likes to search for the way to the net and reminds a little of Maria Sharapova from the outside, had to declare her love-hate for tennis again and again. “It’s only beginning to give me real pleasure. I am a perfectionist, and it is naturally difficult to be satisfied in this sport,” explained the eloquent super talent. As a child, she once dreamed of marrying Novak Djokovic (Serbia). Today she giggles when she tells that story.