Karolina Pliskova had earned her fourth set point, and her first one on her own serve. Surely this time the No. 4 seed would cash it in and push her opponent, unseeded Sorana Cirstea, into a third set.
Pliskova and Cirstea rallied briefly, until Cirstea sent a hard shot to Pliskova’s forehand. Despite being behind the baseline and leaning backward, Pliskova tried to drive a flat forehand at maximum velocity, with no margin for error, crosscourt. The ball ended up in the net, Cirstea came back to break, and two games later she had won the match, 6-1, 7-5. It was her first victory over a Top 5 opponent in four years, and it advanced her to the quarterfinals of the Premier Mandatory event in Beijing.
Cirstea earned it; she did exactly what she needed to do, and what Pliskova didn’t do, to win this match. When Pliskova fell behind early in the first set, she failed to slow Cirstea’s momentum. She committed nine unforced errors in the first three games, and while she has one of the best serves on tour, she was broken three times in that set. Contrast that to what Cirstea did in the second. When she fell behind 0-3, she made sure she gutted out a tough hold so that she could stay in touch at 1-3. She did the same thing when she served at 2-5. Down 0-40, Cirstea came up with two service winners and eventually gutted out another tough hold. As one of the commentators from Beijing said of the scrappy Cirstea, “She has the demeanor of someone who loves to be in a fight.”
That wasn’t Pliskova’s demeanor on Thursday. When the Czech arrived in Tokyo to start her season-ending Asian swing, she admitted that she was tired, and that 20 events, 65 matches, and 10 months of mostly non-stop travel had worn on her. After losing in the quarterfinals of the US Open and failing to win her first Slam in 2017, she had split with her coach, David Kotyza. Pliskova reached No. 1 and won three titles with him, but the two differed when it came to how they saw her future direction. This fall, she has played three tournaments without a coach, and lost before the semifinals at all of them.