Late on Tuesday night, Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic needed 3 hours and 3 minutes to quell the challenge of local wild-card Jang Su-Jeong in the Hana Bank Korea Open, the WTA 500 tournament in Seoul, to complete the 1st-round of matches and set up a meeting with 4th-seeded Beatriz Haddad Maia from Brazil, who received a bye into round 2.
It’s really nice feeling because this season, let’s say, is not perfect for me. Veronika Kudermetova
On Wednesday, for the first time, Polina and Veronika Kudermetova both reached the quarter-finals of a Hologic WTA Tour event, the Russian sisters notching up upset wins to make the Last 8.
21-year old lucky loser Polina came from 3-5 down in the second set to oust her compatriot, the 2022 champion and No 7 seed, Ekaterina Alexandrova, 6-2 7-5.
Polina had lost to China’s Lu Jia-Jing in the final round of qualifying, but rebounded to post the first Top 50 win of her career, and reach the Seoul quarter-finals for the second year in a row.
Former World No 9, Veronika, aged 27, followed by upsetting another compatriot, No 2 seed Liudmila Samsonova, 6-4 6-2, in the last match of the night session.
Having slumped to 44 in the rankings, this was a welcome return to form.
“It’s really nice feeling because this season, let’s say, is not perfect for me,” said Veronika afterwards.
The sisters have both reached the 2nd-round of a WTA event once before, at ‘s-Hertogenbosch in 2023, but with Polina’s ranking at No 163, they don’t often get to compete in the same tournaments.
In the quarters, Polina next will face either Haddad Maia or Tomljanovic, while Veronika is set to meet America’s Amanda Anisimova or Viktoriya Tomova from Bulgaria, and, if they can pull off wins, they could meet in the semi-finals.
Elsewhere, yet another Russian, No 4 seed Diana Shnaider, and 5th-seeded Marta Kostyuk from Ukraine both eased into the Last 8 with straight-sets wins over qualifiers.
Shnaider advanced, 6-3 6-3, past Canadian Carol Zhao in an hour and 7 minutes, while Kostyuk dismissed Britain’s Heather Watson, 6-2 6-2, in 75 minutes.
This is the 7th quarter-final for Kostyuk this season.
