No. 2 seed Belinda Bencic of Switzerland advanced to the quarterfinals of the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open by defeating Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk 6-4, 7-5 on Wednesday in the United Arab Emirates.
Ranked No. 9 in the world, Bencic rebounded from a 5-3 deficit in the second set to win in one hour, 35 minutes and move to 9-2 on the season. Bencic’s win was highlighted by her dominant serve in the first set, in which she won 93.8 percent of the points on her first serves and never faced a break point.
In the quarters, she’ll face Shelby Rogers, who moved on when No. 7 seed Anett Kontaveit of Estonia retired from their second-round match trailing 4-6, 6-3, 4-1 due to a back injury.
No. 4 seed Veronika Kudermetova of Russia advanced with a 6-1, 7-5 win over Belgium’s Elise Mertens, but No. 5 seed Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia was upset by China’s Qinwen Zheng 7-6 (10), 6-1.
Upper Austria Ladies Linz
Top seed Maria Sakkari of Greece coasted to a second-round win over Russia’s Varvara Gracheva 6-4, 6-2 in Linz, Austria.
Sakkari saved all six break points and capitalized on three of her 12 break opportunities to move to the quarterfinals.
Clara Tauson of Denmark, a lucky loser in the field, upset No. 3 seed Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania for her first top 30 win in a year. Tauson needed just 76 minutes for the 6-1, 6-2 win.
Fourth-seeded Anhelina Kalinina of Ukraine beat American Alycia Parks 6-2, 7-5 and No. 8 Anastasia Potapova of Russia outlasted Germany’s Jule Niemeier 7-5, 3-6, 6-3. Other winners were American Madison Brengle, Czech Marketa Vondrousova and Anna-Lena Friedsam of Germany.
–Field Level Media
