The 21-year-old brilliantly qualified for the second round by knocking out the Kazakh in two sets. .
Clara Burel, 131st in the world and qualified, achieved the feat of beating the winner of the last Wimbledon, Elena Rybakina (25th), 6-4, 6-4, Tuesday in the first round of the US Open.
The Frenchwoman, who is participating at 21 in her second New York Major (elimination in the 1st round in 2021), will face the Belgian Alison van Uytvank (43rd) or the American Venus Williams (1,504th and guest).
This season, Burel had been eliminated in the first round of the first three Grand Slam tournaments (Australian Open, Roland-Garros, Wimbledon). Her best Major result to date is the third round achieved at Roland-Garros in 2020. Facing Rybakina, Burel was the most realistic: she made her three break points and saved 8 of the 9 conceded to his opponent. The French also benefited from the large number of unforced errors committed by Rybakina (37 against 24 for Burel).
“I am 131st in the world, she has just won Wimbledon, she is 25th but if she had had the Wimbledon points she would be even better ranked, so it is sure that it is a small achievement”savored the Frenchwoman in reference to the absence of WTA (and ATP) points distributed during the Major on grass due to the decision of the tournament to refuse Russian and Belarusian players in retaliation for the war in Ukraine. “When you see the match, I don’t think you see that she is 100 places higher than me in the standings. I was more solid and I think it showed. She has a rather particular game. A bit like Rybakina, it goes very fast, she takes the ball very early so we can expect anything. I played it two years ago in Australia in the first round, I lost in a close match. She’s a very good player so it’s going to be difficult for sure. She can have some really good times, where you can’t do much except watch the ball go by. She has a good serve so the objective was to return as much as possible and to be super solid. I knew she was going to make mistakes, there were some and I knew how to take advantage of them.she added.