LONDON, UK - It's been a while since former World No.46 Oceane Dodin was a regular fixture on the WTA Tour, but the Frenchwoman scored a statement comeback win to move into the final round of Wimbledon qualifying, upsetting No.10 seed Irina-Camelia Begu 6-3, 1-6, 8-6 in two hours and 14 minutes.
Dodin, who was the 2016 Québec City champion and reached a career high of World No.46 the following June, played just one match - which ended in retirement - in nine months between Wimbledon 2018 and a return to the court in a Sunderland ITF W25 tournament this April. The issue, she revealed, was medical vertigo: "For one year, I would feel dizzy all the time," Dodin said. It was a problem that took some time and many different doctors to correctly diagnose, but all has been sorted, she claimed: "Now we know the problem, we know what to do, and it's better."
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Dodin's no-holds-barred power hitting certainly approached top form in overcoming Begu, who served for the match at 5-4 in the deciding set - only to face a barrage of scorching winners as the World No.509 upped the pace, drawing gasps with a phenomenal pass hit while twisting to reach a Begu lob at 6-6, 30-30. "My serve and my aggressive game won me the match," assessed Dodin. Though a combination of ITF and qualifying events garnered her just an 8-6 win-loss record since April coming into Wimbledon, the 22-year-old knows how to raise her game on the big stage. "I play better when I play big players because I know I don't have a choice," she asserted. "I give everything I have."
No.14 seed Olga Danilovic's challenges have not been health-related; indeed, the 18-year-old is sanguine about her dip in form since winning the Moscow River Cup title last July as a lucky loser in her WTA debut. The Serb's record since then is 13-21, with just one win in a WTA main draw, but she was upbeat following a rollercoaster 7-6(2), 6-7(4), 6-2 victory over Amandine Hesse.
Read more: 'I was given this chance, I had to take it' - Danilovic goes from lucky loser to champion in Moscow
"I had a lot of good matches that I unfortunately didn't win, I had a lot of tough draws," Danilovic said. "But it's just part of the process, as they say, that I'm experiencing now. It's just ups and downs, ups and downs, and I just need more matches to get used to it day by day."
The left-hander will get her wish - and a shot at making her Grand Slam main draw debut - after a dramatic tilt against Hesse, dominating the final set with impressive firepower after letting a break lead slip in the second. The Frenchwoman was among the most vocal of the day's players, near-continuously alternating between exhorting and berating herself, but Danilovic was unfazed. "I'm also emotional - but I just looked to myself," she smiled.
Elsewhere, 15-year-old wildcard Cori Gauff had little trouble in backing up her first-round upset of No.1 seed Aliona Bolsova, dismissing Valentyna Ivakhnenko 6-2, 6-3 in one hour and five minutes. Gauff's next match will be one of the picks of the final qualifying round: No.19 seed Greet Minnen is one of 2019's most improved players, having risen from World No.316 to World No.129 since the end of last year, and the Belgian - cheered on by girlfriend Alison Van Uytvanck - came through a quality contest of high-octane hitting over 18-year-old Liang En-Shuo 6-3, 2-6, 6-1.
Read more: Gauff stuns Bolsova, Juvan wins epic in Wimbledon qualifying
Gauff's fellow American teenager Catherine McNally was also in superb form as she outmanoeuvred Priscilla Hon 6-4, 6-4: the 17-year-old captured the crucial second-set break at 4-4 by standing well inside the baseline to return the Australian's serve, following it up with a net-rush that forced Hon to send an improvised pass wide. After her first-round win, discussing her throwback gamestyle, McNally had said she had found that "a lot of girls don't like my slice", and Hon was certainly one of them: at one point, the World No.164 hit a slice so biting that Hon, after shanking her response, had muttered: "That's so depressing. What even just happened?"
Also deploying finesse to superb effect was No.20 seed Kaja Juvan, who - less than 24 hours after her marathon 6-4, 3-6, 10-8 win over Valentini Grammatikopoulou - survived another three-setter, with deft use of dropshots and angles turning her match against Basak Eraydin, the Turkish World No.211 who herself boasted a neat and rare single-handed backhand, around for a 4-6, 7-6(3), 6-3 win.
Former Wimbledon finalist Sabine Lisicki continued to make good use of her wildcard, notching up consecutive victories for the first time since November as she defeated Ankita Raina 6-1, 7-6(4) - a satisfying revenge for the 29-year-old over an opponent who had beaten her soundly 6-3, 6-1 just three weeks ago in the Surbiton ITF W100 final qualifying round. Meanwhile, another former Top 20 player, 2009 US Open semifinalist Yanina Wickmayer, essayed a remarkable turnaround, saving a match point as No.16 seed Tereza Smitkova served for the match before running away with a 1-6, 7-6(3), 6-1 triumph.
Wickmayer will face the under-the-radar No.31 seed Liudmila Samsonova in the final round, after the Russian conjured up a blitz of bold winners to haul back a 1-4 tiebreak deficit and move past Kaylah McPhee 6-2, 7-6(5). Also in eyebrow-raising form were fast-rising 19-year-old No.8 seed Elena Rybakina, whose ballstriking was clean and irresistible as she took just 45 minutes to rout Richel Hogenkamp 6-3, 6-0, and Elena-Gabriela Ruse, who survived early-evening gusty conditions and a gritty Romanian compatriot Irina Bara to win a classic power-versus-defence stylistic contrast 6-2, 5-7, 6-4.
Three years after cracking the Top 200, 22-year-old Antonia Lottner has yet to debut inside the Top 100 - but the German has nonetheless gained a reputation as something of an upset artist, with three Top 20 upsets under her belt - two of which, Dominika Cibulkova at 's-Hertogenbosch 2017 and Elise Mertens at the same tournament a year later, were on grass. Lottner carried over her knack for eliminating higher-ranked players today by knocking out No.5 seed Natalia Vikhlyantseva 6-4, 6-1. No.4 seed Misaki Doi was also an upset victim, falling away 6-4, 6-2 to a free-hitting Arina Rodionova.
Final qualifying round:
[WC] Cori Gauff (USA) vs. [19] Greet Minnen (BEL)
[2] Anna Blinkova (RUS) vs. [29] Tereza Martincova (CZE)
[3] Lauren Davis (USA) vs. Kristie Ahn (USA)
Arina Rodionova (AUS) vs. Danielle Lao (USA)
Antonia Lottner (GER) vs. [30] Anna Kalinskaya (RUS)
[6) Christina McHale (USA) vs. [20] Kaja Juvan (SLO)
Jana Cepelova (USA) vs. Catherine McNally (USA)
[8] Elena Rybakina (KAZ) vs. [28] Varvara Flink (RUS)
[WC] Samantha Murray (GBR) vs. [22] Paula Badosa (ESP)
Oceane Dodin (FRA) vs. Giulia Gatto-Monticone (ITA)
Katarzyna Kawa (POL) vs. Elena-Gabriela Ruse (ROU)
[12] Ysaline Bonaventure (BEL) vs. [26] Arantxa Rus (NED)
[13] Marie Bouzkova (CZE) vs. [24] Ana Bogdan (ROU)
[14] Olga Danilovic (SRB) vs. [17] Beatriz Haddad Maia (BRA)
Lesley Kerkhove (NED) vs. [WC] Sabine Lisicki (GER)
Yanina Wickmayer (BEL) vs. [31] Liudmila Samsonova (RUS)