Ostapenko and Barty meet in Wuhan semis
Sakkari pummels Cornet as Garcia beats Makarova
WUHAN, China, Sept 28, (AFP): Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko sunk Spaniard Garbine Muguruza at a shock-prone Wuhan Open on Thursday, powering through a tight match to bag a 1-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory against the world number one.
Ostapenko, the only seed left in the competition, will now square up to Ashleigh Barty in the semifinals after the Aussie pulled off a major upset against former world number one Karolina Pliskova.
Maria Sakkari of Greece will go head-to-head with France’s Caroline Garcia in the second semi, meaning all four players are aged 23 or under.
Ostapenko, this year’s Roland Garros winner, won the last six games of a compelling match against Muguruza, scoring her first win over a reigning world number one and extending her winning streak to eight in a row.
“It’s my first time beating number one in the world and hopefully not the last time,” said Ostapenko, seeded eight.
“Today I had no pressure because I knew I’m playing a great player, so I just went out there and tried to show my best and played very well.”
Muguruza, who had been hunting for her first victory as the top-ranked player in the world, found herself grappling with a knee injury that has plagued her for the past two weeks.
“I was struggling with my game obviously,” she said. “It was a close match at the end, three sets. It was tight.”
“Today she (Ostapenko) went for her shots, she served pretty good and she returned very good as well,” she added.
Elsewhere Barty downed Pliskova, the number three seed, 4-6, 7-6 (7/3), 7-6 (7/2).
Barty, ranked 37th in the world, failed to convert three match points in the third set but dominated the deciding tiebreak to bag her first ever win against a top-five player.
The 21-year-old Barty had already seen off Agnieszka Radwanska, seeded nine, and Johanna Konta, the fifth seed in a dream run in the humid Chinese city.
“I played a really good match and I’m just happy to come through at the end,” she said.
“It was really important for me to
Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia hits a return against Maria Garbine Muguruza of Spain during their women’s singles quarter-final match at the WTA Wuhan Open tennis tournament in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province on Sept 28. (AFP)
look after my service games and obviously try and make inroads into Karolina’s games and I was able to do that.”
The Czech, who is the world number four but who spent eight weeks at number one this year, had looked strong in the earlier rounds as she breezed past China’s Zhang Shuai and Wang Qiang.
“I think she was playing just a little bit better today,” Pliskova said.
“Even though it was really close, one or two points... I think she was just more aggressive.”
In the other quarter-final matches, Sakkari pummelled France’s Alize Cornet 7-6 (7/2), 7-5 and Garcia triumphed over 7-6(7/3), 6-4 over Russia’s Ekaterina Makarova.
Meanwhile, Chinese great Li Na backed Serena Williams to pull off a quickfire return to tennis after the birth of her first child — but said there was no way she could have rushed back to the sport.
Williams, 36, has spoken of her “outrageous” plans to defend her title at the Australian Open in January, less than five months after giving birth to her baby daughter on September 1.
Li, who announced she was pregnant two months after retiring in 2014, said she wouldn’t have been able to leave her own young daughter, adding that she had probably only hit a tennis ball 10 times since quitting the sport and becoming a mother.
“Serena can fix everything,” Li said, referring to the challenge of being a tennis-playing parent. “But if I think about myself, I couldn’t do that. With a baby so young, I couldn’t leave them.”
Asked if she missed tennis, the twotime Grand Slam-winner told reporters at the Wuhan Open that she hankered after the “fight and competition” but that she had left that side of herself behind.
“Now I just follow,” said Li, whose daughter is now two and who also has a baby son.