Play continues at the tournaments in Mexico and Tunisia, both on hard courts, and a brief roundup follows…
Guadalajara | WTA 500 Guadalajara Open Akron presented by Santander
Aussie Olivia Gadecki handed Danielle Collins her 4th straight loss on Wednesday night at the Complejo Panamericano de Tenis, in Guadalajara, defeating the No 2-seeded American, 6-3 6-3.
The win continued the 152nd-ranked qualifier’s run, having taken down another American, Sloane Stephens, on Monday.
30-year old Collins arrived at Guadalajara with 39 tour-level wins and 2 titles on tour this year, and is currently ranked No 11 in the world, but she was also coming off a 1st-round defeat at the US Open to countrywoman Caroline Dolehide.
22-year-old Gadecki dropped her serve just once, immediately after she broke Collins for 3-2 in the first set, but went on to break the American 3 more times in the match,
On reaching a pair of match points, Gadecki fired an un-returnable serve up the T to pull off the major upset at the 84-minute mark, scoring her first completed win over a Top 50 opponent this season.
Collins committed 35 unforced errors and produced 8 double-faults, extending her streak of losses since retiring from the 3rd set of her quarter-final against top-ranked Iga Swiatek at the Paris Olympics.
Playing her final season after announcing her retirement plans at January’s Australian Open, Collins missed a valuable opportunity to move up the leaderboard in the race to the WTA Finals.
She currently sits in 8th position, but is on the outside looking in as Czech Barbora Krejcikova, who is 2 places behind, earns an automatic spot to the 8-competitor field if she finishes inside the Top 20 as a 2024 Grand Slam champion.
Gadecki has not dropped a set on her way to the quarter-finals across 2 main draw and 2 qualifying matches, and, in the Last 8, meets Italy’s Martina Trevisan, a former Top 20 player who made her second straight Last 8 appearance at this event by eliminating the last Mexican hope standing, Renata Zarazua, 6-4 6-3.
Camila Osorio pulled off a tremendous come-back to upset 7th seed Veronika Kudermetova from Russia, 7-6(5) 6-7(2) 7-5, after 3 hours and 21 minutes, storming back from 0-5 in the deciding set.
The Colombian had to take a medical time-out ahead of the third set, after rubbing her shoulder following a double-fault deep in the second-set tiebreak, prior to the physio coming out on court.
Kudermetova appeared to have her first quarter-final since April in the bag, winning 5 straight games to take the commanding lead in the decider, but the former World No 9 never got to match point, and a determined Osorio built her come-back step by step.
The World No 80 picked off the next 7 games in a row to seal the win and notch up the 19th Top 50 win of her career, matching the Guadalajara Open AKRON result by her compatriot Emiliana Arango, who reached the quarter-finals here last year.
Osorio takes on Kamilla Rakhimova, another Russian, next, after the 23-year-old led former World No 1 Victoria Azarenka from Belarus, 6-2, 3-0, when the No 3 seed retired from their encounter with a right shoulder issue.
Despite the retirement by 19th-ranked Azarenka, this still counts as 23-year old Rakhimova’s first career Top 20 win.
The World No 89 is on a roll in Guadalajara, having won 7 consecutive matches in this city over the past 10 days, including grabbing her first career WTA 125 title here last week.
Britain’s Sonay Kartal cruised into the quarter-finals with an upset win over Mai Hontama at the WTA 250 Jasmin Open by Lilas in Monastir, Tunisia, on Wednesday
WTAtennis.com
Monastir | WTA 250 Jasmin Open by Lilas
British qualifier Sonay Kartal, ranked 151 in the world, defeated Japan’s Mai Hontama, 6-2 6-2, in 78 minutes at the Jasmin Open Tunisia in Monastir, Tunisia, on Wednesday.
Kartal, the British No 4, cruised into the first WTA quarter-final of her career, beating a player ranked 46 place above her.
The 22-year-old from Brighton, who took a 3-0 lead in both sets, and closed each out despite her opponent pulling games back, now has an overall 2024 record standing at 41-7.
She will play Ukraine’s Yuliia Starodubtseva in the Last 8 after the World No 130 upset 3rd-seed Diane Parry.
Kartal, who was Emma Raducanu’s main domestic rival as a junior, reached the 3rd-round at Wimbledon earlier this year before falling to 2nd seed Coco Gauff.
No 2 seed Clara Burel and Parry, both from France, became the latest casualties on Wednesday, falling in the 2nd-round to Slovakia’s Rebecca Sramkova and Starodubtseva respectively.
A day after 4th-seeded Nadia Podoroska from Argentina and 5th-seeded Jaqueline Cristian of Romania were ousted in the opening round, Sramkova took down Burel, 7-6(4) 7-5, and qualifier Starodubtseva eliminated Parry, 6-4 6-4.
Sramkova came from 2-5 down in the first set, saving a set point, and 2-4 down in the second to advance to her second tour-level quarter-final of 2024, where she will meet Spain’s Sara Sorribes Tormo for a place in the semi-finals.
Sorribes Tormo needed 3 hours to rally past Jana Fett from Croatia, 5-7 6-3 6-4, coming from a set and a break down to advance to her second quarter-final this season.
Starodubtseva saved 6 break points and converted her 4th match point in coming through a 9-deuce final game to record her first Top 60 win, having also saved 12 of 13 break points, to 3 of 6 for Parry, who also had 6 aces.
In doubles action, Britain’s Emily Appleton and her Polish partner, Martyna Kubka, were seeded 4th but upset by Bosnia’s Anita Wagner & Ekaterina Yashina from Russia, 6-2 6-2, in the Last 8.
