Bacsinszky knocks off another Top 5 opponent
KEY BISCAYNE — Timea Bacsinszky arrived in South Florida with just three wins against Top 5 opponents.
She nowhas two more in as many days after a brilliant stretch at the Miami Open, a stretch that continued when the world’s 20th-ranked player rallied from a set down to upset fifth-ranked Simona Halep 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in a quarterfinal match at the Crandon Park Tennis Center on Tuesday afternoon.
Bacsinszky’s win came a little more than 24 hours after she stunned world No. 2 Agnieszka Radwanska in a three-set match on Monday that gave the 26-year-old her first spot in the tournament’s quarterfinals.
Now, she’s hit a new high here, becoming the first player to earn a spot in the semifinals where she’ll the winner of Tuesday’s late match between Svetlana Kuznetsova and Ekaterina Makarova.
And with Halep’s exit, now just one of the top seeds on the women’s side remains — Germany’s Angelique Kerber, the world No. 2, who will face Boca Raton’s Madison Keys on Wednesday.
Bacsinszky, though, wasn’t much concerned with the talk of continued upsets and the departures of some of the tournament’s biggest names. For her, therewas only happiness after she endured a second marathon match against a tough opponent.
“The ranking is only a number. Sometimes you can play very good, better than your ranking and sometimes less good than your ranking,” said Bacsinszky, whose winner against Halep came two hours and 28 minutes after the match began. “Obviously, for sure it gives me confidence to have these two wins, but it doesn’t change that I’m going to have a fierce opponent and it’s going to be really tough.”
After Bacsinszky’s win and three major upsets Monday, things went more as expected on Stadium Court during the early part of the day, with several higher-seeded players advancing, including two-time defending champion and top-ranked Novak Djokovic, who earned his spot in the quarterfinals with a 6-3, 6-4 win over 14th-ranked Dominic Thiem of Austria.
The pair, which entered their match Wednesday as co-leaders with 24 match wins on the ATP Tour this season, had some stirring rallies, with Thiem fighting off match point three times before Djokovic finally clinched the win, one in which he overcame nine double faults, the most he’s had in a best-of-three match since he had 11 in a loss to Olivier Rochus here at the Miami Open in 2010.
“Itwas a straight sets win, but far from easy,” Djokovic said. “It was a tough match. … I thought my first serve was really good today. The second serve wasn’t working that well. Itwas also due to the pressure that he was imposing. But I just couldn’t find the rhythm today.”
Djokovic will now face seventh-ranked Tomas Berdych, who rallied after falling behind in the third set to outlast No. 10 Richard Gasquet 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 in a match that lasted nearly two hours and sent the 30-year-old native of the Czech Republic to his fourth straight quarterfinals here.
“It’s very difficult, these conditions, for all of us. It’s always really matters how well you’re prepared or how well you’re able to deal with that,” said Berdych, who had 12 aces in the win and won the final three games of the third. “I had a test in the previous round, today itwas the same one. Probably, of course, you can feel a little less energy in the third set than what you feel in the beginning, but I think we both were going a little bit down with that. Itwas just a matter of who is able to survive it better.”
Now, Berdych faces another test in Djokovic, whom he has beaten just twice in 24 meetings.
Also advancing Tuesday all in straight sets were Milos Raonic, Gilles Simon, and Nick Kyrgios. Lucky loser Horacio Zeballos saw his run at the tournament end after a 7-5, 6-3 loss to Germany’s David Goffin.