Champion Pliskova is dumped out by Sabalenka

Eastbourne defending women’s singles champion Karolina Pliskova was a shock casualty yesterday when she surrendered a three-game lead in her deciding set with 20-yearold Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka to lose 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (7-5).

Thesecond-seededczech player, pictured below, who has reached the final in the past two years, lost in two hours, 12 minutes.

It was Sabalenka’s first win over a top-ten player.

Sabalenka, who is ranked 45th in the world, fought back from a 4-1 deficit in the deciding set and clinched the match when Pliskova sent a forehand wide.

Sabalenka’s reward for her surprise win against the second seed is a lastfour meeting with 2008 champion Agnieszka Radwanska.

The Polish player, continuingherreturnfromaback injury, prevented fifth seed Jelenaostapenkoreaching her first grass court semifinal with a6-2,7-5 victory. Topseeded Caroline Wozniacki survived a scare to beat Ashleigh Barty of Australia 6-4, 6-3.

The eighth-seeded Barty broke twice in the second set however Wozniacki broke straight back each time and the Danish player won four successive games to book her semi-final spot, sealing the resultwhenbartyreturned into the net.

Wozniacki will play fourth-seeded Angelique Kerber, who prevailed over Daria Kasatkina 6-1, 6-7 (3-7), 7-6 (7-3).

Kerber seemed on her way to a comfortable win as the German powered through the first set in just 19 minutes.

But the seventh-seeded Kasatkina recovered from her terrible start and the Russian pushed Kerber all the way.

Both players appeared to struggle on their serve – with Kasatkina in particular racking up ten double faults. There were several breaks of serve before Kerber triumphed in little over two hours.