Haddad Maia gets the better of Jabeur
Sixth seed Beatriz Haddad Maia reached the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open semifinals for a second straight year after upsetting second seed Ons Jabeur 6-3, 64 in 1 hour and 30 minutes.
The Brazilian had come through the longest match of the year on Wednesday, outlasting Magda Linette 7-6(6), 6-7(1), 61 in 3 hours and 42 minutes.
Haddad Maia started from where she left off and took the first set 6-3, despite the crowd rooting for Jabeur.
Although Jabeur showed flashes of brilliance, she couldn’t find her rhythm against Maia’s strong baseline game. She saved one match point, but Maia wouldn’t be denied, winning the match and setting up a semi-final against Daria Kasatkina.
The top-half semifinal will see No.1 seed Elena Rybakina take on No.8 seed Liudmila Samsonova after both advanced in straight sets. Rybakina defeated lucky loser Cristina Bucsa for the second time this year, coming from 3-1 down in the second set to win 6-1, 6-4.
Whereas Bucsa had pushed Rybakina hard in the Adelaide second round, this time round
Rybakina sailed through the first set for the loss of just eight points. The Spaniard’s ability to redirect pace garnered her an early lead in the second set, but Rybakina recovered to win five of the last six games.
The former Wimbledon champion fired seven aces, and dropped just five points behind her first serve.
Rybakina will face a stern test against Samsonova, who defeated No.4 seed Barbora Krejcikova 7-5, 6-4. Samsonova is 4-0 against Rybakina at pro level, all on outdoor hard courts, including wins in the Montreal and Beijing semifinals last year. The only time Rybakina was victorious over Samsonova at any level was in their only junior meeting in 2016, winning 3-6, 7-5, 7-6(5) on clay in Umag.
Top seed falls in Romania
No. 8 seed Ana Bogdan of Romania ousted top-seeded Arantxa Rus of the Netherlands 3-6, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (5) in a three-hour, 28minute marathon in the quarterfinals of the Transylvania Open on Friday in Cluj-napoca, Romania.
Bogdan won a tightly contested second-set tiebreaker on her second set point, then rallied from down 5-4 in both the third set and the ensuing tiebreaker to finish the upset. Bogdan had eight aces without a double fault while saving 12 of 18 break points; Rus had four aces but committed eight double faults.