US Open – Day 3 Women’s Report: McHale, Falconi Stun Seeds

Written by: Staff on 1st September 2011

US Open - Day 3 Women's Report: McHale, Falconi Stun Seeds |

(courtesy of USTA)

On a day where four young American women faced seeds, Christina McHale and Irina Falconi each pulled off big upsets, with McHale defeating No. 8 seed Marion Bartoli, 7-6, 6-2, to move into the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time in her career, and Falconi doing the same with a 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 victory over No. 14 Dominika Cibulkova.

McHale, a New Jersey resident who trained at the USTA Training Center Headquarters in Boca Raton, Fla., as a youngster and currently works out at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, next faces No. 25 seed Maria Kirilenko in the third round. (In a scheduling oddity, the two first face off in doubles today). Falconi, the 2010 collegiate Player of the Year at Georgia Tech, takes on No. 22 Sabine Lisicki in the third round. Falconi is playing in the US Open for the second straight year; she reached the main draw a year ago as a qualifying wild card.

In other matches featuring young Americans yesterday, 16-year-old Madison Keys, ranked No. 455 coming in, fell just shy of upsetting No. 27 seed Lucie Safarova, losing, 3-6, 7-5, 6-4, in an entertaining second-round encounter; and CoCo Vandeweghe fell to No. 9 seed Samantha Stosur, 6-3, 6-4.