Sloane Stephens advanced to the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open by eking out a 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3) win over fifth-seeded Janice Tjen of Indonesia on Tuesday in Mexico.
After a first set that featured no service breaks, Tjen had two set points while serving at 5-2 in the second set. Stephens recovered to take that game, then broke serve again to level the set 5-5 before prevailing in another tiebreaker.
Stephens, the 2017 U.S. Open champion, won despite failing to save either of the break points on her serve and despite hitting just two aces to Tjen’s 11.
Next up for Stephens will be an all-U.S. matchup against Peyton Stearns, who upset fourth-seeded Diane Parry of France 6-2, 7-5.
In the day’s other second-round results, third-seeded Sara Bejlek of the Czech Republic eliminated Alycia Parks 6-4, 6-3, and sixth-seeded Cristina Bucsa of Spain downed Hungary’s Panna Udvardy 6-4, 6-4.
SP Open
Ninth-seeded Darja Semenistaja of Latvia, who had lost her past nine main-draw matches, earned a first-round win in Sao Paulo, defeating Japan’s Hayu Kinoshita 7-5, 6-4.
Semenistaja’s skid included opening-round defeats at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, each of which she reached as a lucky loser from qualifying.
Elsewhere at the rain-delayed tournament, Armenia’s Elina Avanesyan beat Argentina’s Julia Riera 6-2, 6-4; Serbia’s Teodora Kostovic downed Brazil’s Victoria Luiza Barros 6-2, 6-4; and Argentina’s
Nadia Podoroska got past Italy’s Lucrezia Stefanini 6-3, 6-4.
–Field Level Media
