DUBAI — In an individual sport like tennis, Madison Brengle says it’s never going to be smooth sailing all the time.
“You’ll have good matches and you’ll have bad matches,” the …
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DUBAI — In an individual sport like tennis, Madison Brengle says it’s never going to be smooth sailing all the time.
“You’ll have good matches and you’ll have bad matches,” the 25-year-old from Dover said last week. “As you get older, you have to learn how to handle those ups and downs a little bit better.”
On Wednesday, Brengle had to deal with plenty of ups and downs, all in one match.
But she finished the match by pulling off one of the biggest upsets of her tennis career, rallying to shock eighth-ranked Petra Kvitova in the second round of the WTA Dubai Duty Free Tournament.
After getting shut out 6-0 in just 19 minutes in the first set, Brengle came back to beat the fourth-seeded Czech, 7-6 (7-2), 6-3 to reach the tournament quarterfinals.
The 25-year-old Brengle, ranked No. 60 in the world, was up 5-4 in the second set when she lost three set points. But she came back to win the set in a tiebreaker.
In the third set, Brengle fell behind 2-0 before winning six of the final seven games to advance in the tourney. With rain interrupting the tournament, Brengle’s match ended past midnight local time.
Brengle is actually now 2-0 against Kvitova, having also beaten the 25-year-old left-hander in Stuttgart, Germany last year. Kvitova was ranked fourth in the world then.
Kvitova is a two-time Wimbledon champion who won the Dubai title in 2013.
The top eight seeds have now been eliminated after just two rounds in Dubai. Brengle next faces Sara Errani, a 28-year-old Italian who is ranked 22nd in the world.
Brengle has faced Errani only once before, with the Italian posting a 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 victory in last year’s Canadian Masters.
It’s been a pretty good week so far for Brengle, who on Monday was named the 2015 Delaware Athlete of the Year by the Delaware Sportswriters & Broadcasters Association.