Top seed Zheng Qinwen and unseeded Amanda Anisimova each advanced to their first semifinals on grass with wins at the HSBC Championships on Friday in London.
Zheng of China came from 3-0 and 4-2 down in the second set to beat hometown favorite Emma Raducanu in straight sets, 6-2, 6-4. The last British playing standing in the tournament was treated between sets for back problems. Zheng will face No. 8 Anisimova, who beat fellow American Emma Navarro 6-3, 6-3. The match stood at 3-3 in the first set before Anisimova won five straight games and never let No. 3 Navarro back into it.
German Tatjana Maria is also soaring. She overcame Kazakhstan’s No. 4 Elena Rybakina 6-4, 7-6 (4) to make it to her first WTA 500 semifinal since her memorable 2022 Wimbledon run. She will face second-seeded Madison Keys, who came back to knock out Germany’s Diana Shnaider, the No. 5 seed, in a three-set thriller, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Libema Open
No. 2 seed and two-time champ Ekaterina Alexandrova continues her quest to do it again as she heads into her fourth straight Libema Open semifinal after outlasting fellow Russian No. 8 seed Veronika Kudermetova 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands.
Following her two-hour-and-20-minute match, Alexandrova will face third seed Elise Mertens of Germany, who will be appearing in her first Libema semifinal after defeating lucky loser Yue Yuan of China in straight sets, 6-0, 6-4, in a match that took about an hour less than the Alexandrova-Kudermetova marathon.
There will be a guaranteed first-time finalist on grass with Italian Elisabetta Cocciaretto and Romanian Elena-Gabriela Ruse set to face off in the semis. Cocciaretto saved two set points to knock out the Netherlands’ Suzan Lamens, 6-2, 7-6 (4) and Ruse defeated Canadian Bianca Andreescu 6-2, 6-4 in an hour and 18 minutes.
–Field Level Media
