NEW YORK, NY, US – No.12 seed Anett Kontaveit made short work of lucky loser Daria Kasatkina at the Western & Southern Open, claiming a 6-3, 6-1 victory in just 55 minutes.

The Estonian made a slow start to the encounter, losing the opening two games, but thereafter had few problems as she overwhelmed the former Top 10 player, who entered the main draw after Kim Clijsters’ withdrawal.

"She has been a really good player always, and we've always been really close friends as well, so it was tough out there," Kontaveit said after the match. 

"I thought I managed to play really aggressive and played my game really well. I was serving quite well, and I'm really pleased with the win today."

Holding a 1-0 record in the head-to-head prior to this match up, the 24-year-old initially struggled to adapt to the speed of the court after playing on the clay in Palermo, where she reached her sixth career final, but once she found her range, she dominated an encounter in which she hit 26 winners to 10 unforced errors and made 68% of her first serves.

It was the World No.20’s unforced errors and some doughty defense from Kasatkina, who had lost to Christina McHale in qualifying, that saw the Russian move into the early lead, yet her serve would have neither the power nor accuracy to allow her to maintain it.

After Kontaveit had held to get on the board, double faults opened the door for the seeded player to draw level, and from there she accelerated rapidly away from her rival, ruthlessly pounding her serve and hitting a commendable 14 winners to seven unforced errors in the opening set, which was sealed by a forehand down the line.

The World No.68 was powerless to reverse the trend in the second, during which she managed to win only eight of 22 points on serve.

Early in the set, there was a hint of a recovery, however. Having dropped the opening two games, Kasatkina held then won two successive break points on the Kontaveit serve – the only she would have after the first game of the match. Both were squandered and proceedings quickly ran away from her thereafter.

Kontaveit, who improved her record to 17-6 in 2020, a year in which she made the quarterfinals at the Australian Open and Dubai in addition to losing to Fiona Ferro in the final of the Palermo Ladies' Open two weeks ago, was in remorseless form and allowed her opponent only three points in the final three games.

"It was really good to get a couple of matches in [in Palermo], and get some match practice," she added. "Although it was on a different surface, it still definitely helps. It's eased me up and I'm feeling really well on-court, moving well and playing good tennis so I'm very excited."

Having reached at least the third round of this tournament in each of her last two visits, Danielle Collins or Jil Teichmann stand in her way from making it three-in-a-row.