Guyana’s Sachia Vickery is through to the US Open lawn tennis tournament after winning the qualification tournament and will face Donna Vekic of Croatia, the number 21 seed on Tuesday in her first round match.
The 28-year-old Vickery, who is born to Guyanese parents, won three matches in the qualification tournament en route to qualifying for the prestigious tournament.
In her first qualifying match against Irene Burrillo Escorihuela, Vickery rebounded from a first set defeat to storm to a 6-7, 6-3, 6-0 win.
Despite only serving 67 per cent on her first serve to her opponent’s 72 per cent, Vickery won the match mainly on a 68 per cent winning first serve percentage to her opponent’s 47 per cent.
She also converted 10 of 12 break point opportunities to her opponent’s 5 of 11 beak point chances.
Vickery also dropped the first set in her next match against Viktorija Golubic 2-6 but reeled off the next two sets by identical 6-2, 6-2 scores.
In this match Vickery’s first serve percentage was a whopping 95 per cent and she won 54 per cent of those serves.
She also converted eight of 15 break point opportunities to her opponent’s six of 14.
On Friday in the final match against Yanina Wickmayer, Vickery was leading 3-1 when Wickmayer retired.
Vickery’s manager and mother, Paula Liverpool, said that Vickery broke Wickmayer in the opening game and then held serve to go up 2-0. At this point Wickmayer took a medical time out and, upon resumption, held serve to be behind 1-2.
However after Vickery held serve once more, Wickmayer retired enabling Vickery to qualify for the US Open.
“She knows that a lot of people follow her from Guyana and she’s gonna go out there and do her best,” said Liverpool of her daughter.
“She’s playing on Tuesday against Donna Vekic of Croatia and she’s gonna rep the Guyana flag at some point. She’ll either have it on her bag or somewhere,” Liverpool added.
