BERLIN: Ekaterina Alexandrova continued her winning streak with an upset win over number five seed Coco Gauff at the ongoing German Open on Thursday.
Alexandrova took her winning streak to seven matches, defeating Gauff by 6-4, 6-0 in a 75-minute affair. This is her second Top 10 win of the year after she defeated Belinda Bencic in Miami.
In their previous meeting back in 2021 in Dubai, the 28-year-old lost to Gauff from two match points by 7-6(3), 2-6, 7-6(8).
After trailing 3-1 in the first set, she won 11 of the last 12 games and advanced to the Berlin quarterfinal for the second time in her career.
“Honestly, I do not know. Grass is not my favourite surface, but somehow I am managing to play so well on it. And maybe the score looks easy, but it is never like that because she played amazing. I needed to stay focused during every single point to keep it that way. I am just hoping I can keep this form as long as I can,” said Alexandrova as quoted by WTA.
She will either play Aryna Sabalenka or Veronika Kudermetova in the quarterfinal.
Croatia’s Donna Vekic earned her second Top 10 victory of the season with a 6-7(1), 6-3, 6-4 thrashing of No.2 seed Elena Rybakina in the second round of the German Open.
World No. 23 Vekic stopped the reigning Wimbledon champion’s nine-match undefeated record as well as her eight-match winning streak on the grass in a match that lasted two hours and 14 minutes. The Croatian is a competent grass courter, having advanced to her sixth WTA Tour quarterfinal on the surface.
Neither woman was broken in the opening set, with Rybakina saving three break points at 2-2 and Vekic saving one serving down 3-4, and Vekic was never broken throughout the match.
She broke Rybakina’s service in the sixth game of the second set, on her sixth break point of the match, and lost the final at 3-3. In the second and third sets, Vekic only dropped 11 points in 10 service games.
Withstanding 15 aces from Rybakina’s racquet, Vekic acknowledged her mental toughness for helping her to turn the match around, confronting the woman she referred to as “the best server on the women’s tour right now.”
“I’m really happy to not only beat her but to be in the quarterfinals here. I stayed in the moment. I was just trying to play the next point, the next game. She was serving unbelievably today. She’s definitely, I think, the best server on the women’s tour right now. She was serving really big, so I was like, ‘Just stay with her; your chances will come,’ and they did,” WTA.com quoted Vekic saying afterwards.
“I was just trying to go for it, to be aggressive, which is not easy. In a way, I found myself lucky almost, every time I could get the return in. I felt in a better position once I was in the rally, but to get her serve back was not easy,” she added.
Vekic will next face Elina Avanesyan who registered a 1-6, 6-2, 6-3 win over Anna Blinkova. (ANI)