Maria Sakkari crashes out early in Eastbourne against Anhelina Kalinina

Maria Sakkari played another up and down match on grass losing out against Anhelina Kalinina 6-3 5-7 4-6 to crash out early in Eastbourne.

Sakkari has had a very strange start to the grass season. The Greek player admitted that she feels comfortable on grass despite clay being her favourite surface. She also added that her game works well on grass and that's true but something just seems odd. She was rather poor in Nottingham, Berlin was great and now Eastbourne was another disappointment.

She was pretty good in the opening set despite being unable to hit her first serve consistently. She was great overall especially on return winning two-thirds of all points after Kalinina missed her first serve. The 2nd set was quite competitive with both players having chances.

Kalinina found better angles with her flat groundstrokes that work so well on grass and he was able to take an early lead. At 5-3, she squandered set points only to drop her serve at 5-4 when she served for the 2nd set. She did win it 7-5 in the end but she could have done it much sooner. The final set was one where Kalinina troubled Sakkari a lot.

She took an early break but gave it right back. She failed to use a couple of break points in the next game but to the break towards the end of the set 5-4. She then comfortably closed it out 6-4 for the major win.