No. 1 seed Iga Swiatek of Poland battled back to avoid an upset on Saturday, capturing a 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 victory over Russian Mirra Andreeva in the quarterfinals of the Cincinnati Open in Mason, Ohio.
It looked like Andreeva was going to pull off a stunning win when she went up 5-4 in the third set, but Swiatek, the World No. 1, took the next three games to end the 17-year-old’s historic run at the tournament.
Andreeva was just the fourth player under the age of 18 to reach the quarterfinals of a WTA-1000 level event since 2009, the year that tournament tier was introduced.
“She’s playing and behaving like she’s older,” Swiatek said of Andreeva. “We were playing even, at a similar level, so it was really tight and every point mattered at the end. … I’m happy that I just did solid, and yeah. It wasn’t easy, for sure.”
Swiatek prevailed despite converting only 2 of 10 break points and having fewer aces (12-6). She will go up against Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka, the No. 3 seed, in the semifinals.
Sabalenka was a 6-3, 6-2 winner over 10th-seeded Russian Liudmila Samsonova on Saturday, swatting five aces against zero double faults. She saved 3 of 3 break points and won 27 of 34 first-serve points.
It took Sabalenka just 79 minutes to oust Samsonova.
In the two late matches, No. 6 seed Jessica Pegula of the United States and Spain’s Paula Badosa also advanced to the semis, though in much different fashions.
Pegula needed more than three hours to get by unseeded Leylah Fernandez of Canada, winning the marathon 7-5, 6-7 (1), 7-6 (3). The first was a series of missed opportunities, service was broken a stunning seven consecutive games before Pegula held serve up 6-5 to take the set.
Each player broke serve twice in the second set before the 21-year-old Fernandez stormed through the tiebreaker, winning the final five points. The 30-year-old Pegula, looking for her third title of the year, broke Fernandez’s first service game and led 3-0 before giving up serve and seeing the set tied at 3-3. Each player held serve from there before Pegula won four of the first five points of the tiebreaker and held on for the win.
The 26-year-old Badosa had a much easier go of it against 33-year-old Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia, winning 6-3, 6-2. Badosa dominated on her returns in the matchup of unseeded players, winning 56 percent compared to 22 percent for Pavlyuchenkova. She also converted all three of her break points while saving the one break point Pavlyuchenkova had a shot at.
–Field Level Media
