FCI Staff Writer Sacramento 
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March 11, 2024,
She turned pro in 2016, has a racquet full of experience, yet she is only 21.
The best years are still ahead and the recent year was extremely good.
Her 2024 Australian Open was incredible.
As reported on January 21, 2024 by hindustantimes.com, “Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk ended the fairytale run of Russian qualifier Maria Timofeeva at the Australian Open on Sunday, crushing her 6-2, 6-1 to reach her first Grand Slam quarter-final.”
Marta Kostyuk’s career is turning into a fairytale itself. One that you can’t wait to read.
Are you familiar with her?
Time for a meet and greet.
Marta is a Ukrainian professional tennis player with a career-high ranking of world Number 28 in singles, achieved on January 29, 2024, and Number 27 in doubles, achieved on May 8, 2023.
Congrats to the rising star.
On the WTA Tour, she has won one singles title at the 2023 ATX Open and two doubles titles at the 2022 Slovenia Open and 2023 Birmingham Classic.
Drum roll.
Her best major singles result is reaching the quarterfinals of the 2024 Australian Open.
She would meet the 2023 US Open Champion in Coco Gauff and there was a major buzz in the media.
Speaking of the 19 year old American sensation in Coco Gauff, in terms of her major showdown with Marta, on January 22, 2024, the respected global source olympics.com posted, “Awaiting her in Tuesday’s quarter-final will be Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine who is ranked 35th.
Gauff leads 21-year-old Kostyuk 1-0 in a head-to-head. They previously met at the 2022 Adelaide International where the American prevailed in three sets.”
And here’s the thing.
Marta is a rising star and most likely will lose to a powerful Coco, just don’t make it easy on her.
Put up a good fight.
Marta did just that.
They battled it out in three sets and two brutal tie-breakers before Coco finally prevailed.
That is the recent present.
Time for a little bit of history.
Marta comes from a strong sports background at a high level and it shows.
Her father was the technical director of the Antey Cup, a junior tennis tournament in Kyiv.
Her mother was a professional tennis player who reached a career-high WTA ranking of No. 391, and won a $10k title in her home city of Kyiv in 1994, and represented a Ukrainian tennis team.
Marta is the younger sister of Mariya Kostyuk, who competed for Chicago State University and Southeast Missouri State University, and a cousin of professional football players Vadym and Miro Slavov and gymnast Oksana Slavova.
Bravo.
This winning heritage began to show up early in her career in 2018-2019.
Marta made her main draw tour-level debut at the Australian Open.
Having received a wildcard entry into the qualifying tournament, she defeated Arina Rodionova, Daniela Seguel and Barbora Krejčíková to become the first player born in 2002 to play in a Grand Slam main draw.
Great applause.
By defeating Peng Shuai in the first round, Marta became the youngest player to win a main-draw match in Melbourne since Martina Hingis in 1996.
In the second round, she defeated Australian wildcard Olivia Rogowska in straight sets. In doing this, she became the youngest player to reach the third round of a Grand Slam event since Mirjana Lučić-Baroni reached the same stage at the 1997 US Open.
She certainly is making a name for herself.
Marta won the Burnie International, a $60k tournament in Australia, in February 2018, and reached the final of the Zhuhai Open in March, also a $60k event.
There’s more.
In 2019, she won two further ITF Circuit titles, and reached the quarterfinals of the WTA tournament at Strasbourg as a qualifier where she lost to fourth seed Caroline Garcia.
She finished the season ranked No. 155.
As we move up the timeline, it was in 2024 that Marta began to make her move.
At the Australian Open, she defeated Claire Liu, 25th seed Elise Mertens, Elina Avanesyan and another Russian, qualifier Maria Timofeeva to reach the quarterfinals of a major for the first time.
It marked the first time multiple Ukrainian women have reached the third round, and also a record-breaking number of two of those players made it to the quarterfinals at a major in the Open Era.
Get ready. Drum roll. As a result, she reached the top 30 in the rankings.
She continued to trend upward.
At the San Diego Open, she stunned top seed Jessica Pegula to reach her first WTA 500 final, with her first top-5 win.
Time makes it easy to forget even momentous moments. We knew that we heard of Marta before and we have to go back to 2020, during the height of the pandemic, when Marta was only 18 battled the then top player, Naomi Osaka, at the mighty US Open.
Let’s go down memory lane together.
We think you will greatly enjoy this.
“September 5, 2020,
Even in defeat, some players are so fascinating that it is inevitable that you will make an emotional connection with them and remember them for some time to come.
The US Open is always the perfect setting for that to happen.
We sure miss the crowd but the tennis is still top notch and enthralling.
Just ask mega star Naomi Osaka who was pushed to the limit by Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk.
Talk about nail biters and stomach churners.
In the beginning, as usual when a Naomi Osaka match begins in the early rounds of a Grand Slam, there is an expectation that Naomi with steam roll once she finds her rhythm.
In her match against Marta, the Ukrainian kept interrupting Naomi’s choice of music.
As posted by tennis.com, “Osaka took on the 18-year-old Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk, an exploitive player ranked misleadingly at No 137 in the world. Kostyuk upended No. 31 seed Anastasija Sevastova in the second round. She had absolutely nothing to lose in her first career confrontation against Osaka.”
Marta certainly played that way.
Not wild and reckless mind you, but willing to take guided missile risks.
Early on in the match, we wondered if the tightness of the battle was due to Marta’s stellar play or the fact that Naomi is still nursing a thigh injury.
Previously Naomi withdrew from the final of the Western & Southern Open against Victoria Azarenka last weekend due to a hamstring injury.
Some wondered out loud and in print if Naomi would even play at the US Open due to the combination of her injury and the threat of the coronavirus.
Her third-round slugfest against Marta turned into a very demanding engagement which grew increasingly complicated and perhaps made Naomi wonder if she should have rested.
Perish that thought.
Though Marta kept hitting one incredible shot after another, making it very clear that she was not backing down, Naomi still held on to take the first set 6-3.
Despite spraying 18 unforced errors, Marta was starting to find her range.
She then took a long break at the changeover that lasted more than eight minutes to get her ankle taped.
Then things got really interesting.
After winning the first set, this is the time that Naomi typically solidifies but Marta kept hanging around so that she couldn’t. In between screaming to herself and yelling to her mother in the stands, the Ukrainian 18 year old power house kept matching Naomi point for point and game for game until she found herself ahead in the second set.
Naomi became so frustrated that she threw her racquet. Very uncharacteristic for the normally serene, self-calming Japanese National.
Maybe it’s because she now lives in Los Angeles. Upscale La La Land can sometimes do that to you.
As we watched Marta refuse to go away, we could firmly see that Naomi was in a dog fight, questioning herself and ultimately crumbling as Marta out played and out toughed her to win the second set, 7-6, outscoring Naomi in the tie breaker, 7-4.
The team at Newsday newsday.com observed, “As she occasionally does in pressure moments, Osaka sat with a towel over her head on the changeover after second set, seeking what she calls her inner peace. That was after failing to convert any of six break points in the second set that would have led to a relatively comfortable Friday afternoon on Arthur Ashe Stadium in the third round of the U.S. Open.”
For a moment, it was easy to wonder if Naomi could gather herself. She was the far more experienced player but Marta appeared to be fired up and completely unfazed.
Over decades, we’ve seen many lower ranked players push the higher seed, hit some great shots and then take a set. Even after all of that, we never remotely feel that they are going to win the match. They always find a way to make bad decisions or get nervous and their game goes down. Then the favorite gathers herself and wins the third set, finishing them off.
We absolutely didn’t get that feeling here.
Marta was hitting so many great shots, had so much passion and the momentum that we felt Naomi was in big trouble.
And she was.
Indeed.
Once the third set began, there was no let up from the 18 year old. As soon as Naomi tried to take control, Marta would hit an incredible shot. She also began to tee off on Naomi’s second serve.
Trailing one game to two in the third set, Naomi found herself down 0-40 on her serve, potentially digging herself into a massive hole with Marta more than happy to provide her with a shovel.
Then Naomi’s serve finally kicked in.
Marta had her chance to go up 3-1 and after frustrating Naomi by securing the second set, this would have been her time to surge. She shouldn’t have let that game slip away.
She continued to fight gamely but once Naomi broke her to go up 3-2 in the second set, something obvious and very unfortunate happened.
Marta tapped out.
Her game became perfunctory and her fight was gone.
Now, she did become reckless, spraying darts everywhere except in the lines.
Naomi, in championship form, smelled blood in the water and seized upon her opportunity for the TKO. She raced ahead, reeling off 4 games in a row and Marta was ousted.”
Incredible. Glad we keep copies.
Okay, it is 2024.
Are you ready for more highlights from Marta Kostyuk?
You should be, because more great ones are certainly coming.
~ ~ ~
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marta_Kostyuk
https://www.newsday.com/sports/tennis/us-open/naomi-osaka-u-s-open-1.48958388
https://www.fciwomenswrestling2.com
https://www.fcielitecompetitor.com/
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