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| - Australian world number one Ashleigh Barty saved a match point and battled back to defeat Slovakia's Kristina Kucova on Thursday to reach the third round of the ATP and WTA Miami Open. Top-seeded Barty, the 2019 Miami champion and French Open winner, dispatched 149th-ranked Kucova 6-3, 4-6, 7-5, advancing to a match with Latvia's 54th-ranked Jelena Ostapenko. Barty fired 15 aces, two in a rally from 0-40 down in the final game, to defeat Kucova after two hours and 27 minutes. "It was important in that match to stick to working and trying to figure it out as I went on," Barty said. "Just really happy I never gave up and happy I gave myself a chance to stay in the hunt." The 24-year-old Aussie avoided her first three-match losing streak since 2014 after having fallen to Czech Karolina Muchova in last month's Australian Open quarter-finals and American Danielle Collins at Adelaide the following week. Kucova, whose only win over a top-10 foe came five years ago, forced a third set after Barty sent a forehand long to surrender the lone break of the second set. In the third, Barty sent a backhand wide to give Kucova a break in the fourth game and a 3-1 edge and they both held serve until Kucova served for the match leading 5-3. On Kucova's only match point, she missed a weak first serve and Barty smashed the second for a down the line winner. Kucova sent a backhand long two points later to surrender a break and Barty held then broke for a 6-5 edge only to make three errors to put herself one point from a tie-breaker. Instead, Barty blasted back-to-back aces up the middle and a backhand winner then swatted a service winner on her first match point for the triumph. "Mentally you need to stay there to give yourself a chance," Barty said. "I was proud I was able to hang in there when mentally I could have gotten a little loose." Only Japan's second-ranked Naomi Osaka can overtake Barty for the world number one spot at Miami. js/bb
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