Photo of the week: In it to win it
Elise Mertens has made her way handily into the third round of the US Open and is expected to win her match this afternoon
Top 10 seed in sight
The WTA-seeded 15 now faces Barbora Strycova (WTA 23) at 17.00 today Belgian time. Sport commentators consider her the favourite to win the match.
Mertens’ leap from WTA 37 at the beginning of the year to 15 now has everything to do with her performance at the Australian Open in January. She made it to the quarter-finals, the first Belgian to do so in six years. It was her best-ever performance at a Grand Slam tournament.
She followed up the performance by reaching the fourth round of the French Open in June and the third round of Wimbledon in July.
Mertens, from Leuven, is the final Belgian woman left in the Grand Slam tournament. Kirsten Flipkens (WTA 57) was knocked out in the second round and Yanina Wickmayer (WTA 94) and Alison Van Uytvanck (WTA 39) in the first.
Photo: Yorick Jansens/BELGA
