October 24, 2025

Open Court

MORE TENNIS THAN YOU'LL EVER NEED

Stakusic turns page on US Open with encouraging win

The US Open, which was one of only two tournaments young Canadian Marina Stakusic played this summer, didn’t end well. A second-round loss, a back issue, some tears.

But the 20-year-old began a rebound at the WTA 500 Guadalajara Open Tuesday

Stakusic won only her second WTA Tour-level match of the year in a 3-6, 7-5, 6-4 victory over the much higher-ranked Polina Kudermetova, to advance to a second-round encounter with No. 3 seed Jelena Ostapenko.

Now, that sounds like a close score. But it was even more dramatic than that.

Kudermetova was up 6-3, 5-1 and serving for the match in the second set – only to be denied as Stakusic won six straight games.

AND, at 4-4 in the third set, they were interrupted more than 90 minutes by rain.

When they came back, Kudermetova was serving at love-40.

She won just one point, and made four errors, to basically hand the match to Stakusic. Who will happily take it.

There were 23 double faults in all – nine by Kudermetova, 14 for Stakusic.

There were 28 break points, and 16 breaks (eight each).

Mexico a Marina happy place

Stakusic is now officially on a bit of a roll. She beat Amandine Hesse of France and No. 8 seed Iryna Shymanovich of Russia (4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4) with more rain delays) in the qualifying to get to the main draw.

And she has had some good results, historically, in Mexico.

She made the quarterfinals of a WTA 125 in Puerto Vallarta earlier this year – one of only two tournaments this year in which she won back-to-back matches at any level, and this one included a walkover.

And she won a WTA 125 in Tampico last October.

Stakusic made the quarterfinals at this same WTA 500 Guadalajara tournament a year ago.

Notably, in the second round, she upset Ostapenko, then ranked No. 12, in a third-set tiebreak – 7-0 was the score.

Is past prologue? We shall see.

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