Top seed Arantxa Rus rallied from a set down to beat Alizé Cornet and reach the quarter-finals of the WTA 250 Transylvanian Open in Cluj-Napoca on Wednesday, where she will meet home favourite Ana Bogdan, the No 8 seed, while Nuria Parrizas Diaz upset 3rd-seeded Anna Blinkova to also advance to the Last 8 at the BTarena.
Rus, who hails from the Netherlands, needed 2 hours and 51 minutes to get through her 2nd-round encounter with Cornet, winning the last 8 games of the match to notch up her first win over the French veteran in 3 meetings, 4-6 6-4 6-0.
It was a hard-fought victory for the Dutchwoman, who had to draw on all her resources and creativity to turn the match around against the crafty Cornet.
Rus is enjoying the best period of her career, arriving in Cluj after a season in which she won 3 WTA and 2 ITF titles, while the win on Wednesday puts her into her 2nd quarter-final of the year, after Hobart.
Home favourite Ana Bogdan, the No 8 seed, defeated 19-year old qualifier Erika Andreeva in straight sets on Day 3 of the Transylvania Open
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Also winning in the Round of 16 was Bogdan, ranked 65, with the Romanian defeating 19-year old Erika Andreeva, a Russia qualifier ranked 112, on Wednesday evening, 6-4 6-4.
It is the second year in a row that Bogdan has reached the quarter-finals of the Transylvania Open, after a very intense match in which the Romanian managed the key moments better in the second set, when she was able to bounce back from 1-4 down.
While the first set was pretty straightforward, the second set proved a different story, but Bogdan won 5 consecutive games to score the win.
To get to her first semi-final in Cluj, Bogdan will have to overcome Rus, the favourite for the title.
Rus and Bogdan have met 3 times in their careers, with all matches won by the Romanian. They last played in 2022, on grass, when she won in two sets.
Parrizas Diaz of Spain also went 3 sets to upset Blinkova, the No 3 seed, 6-1 3-6 6-4, converting 7 of 13 break points to 4 of 12 for the Russian, to make it into the Last 8 where she awaits the winner of the 2nd-round match between Britain’s Harriet Dart and the No 5 seed, Elisabetta Cocciaretto, from Italy, on Thursday.
The Spaniard got past Germany’s Laura Siegemund in the 1st-round and now has eliminated the 2022 champion, who had achieved 8 consecutive wins at the Transylvania Open.
Completing the Round of 32 matches, Cocciaretto dispatched Colombian qualifier Emiliana Arango, 6-0 6-1, in just 67 minutes, while Sara Errani, another Italian, beat Caty McNally, 6-2 6-4, to notch up her first tour-level win on indoor hard courts since Luxembourg 2015, and improving to 3-0 overall her record against the American.
Meanwhile, two Brits advanced in the doubles on Wednesay, with Dart partnering Tereza Mihalikova from Slovakia to defeat Russia’s Irina Khromacheva & Miriam Kolodziejova from the Czech Republic, 6-0 7-5; while Olivia Nicholls & Elixane Lechemia from France beat Venezuela’s Andrea Gamiz & Anna Siskova from Czech Republic, 6-4 6-3; but Samatha Murray Sharan & Oksana Kalishnikova from Georgia lost to the top seeds from Japan, Eri Hozumi & Makato Ninomiya, 6-4 6-1.
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