No. 1 seed Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus survived a challenge from Belgium’s Alison Van Uytvanck on Friday and advanced to the Libema Open semifinals at ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands.
Sabalenka finally dispatched Van Uytvanck on her sixth match point for a 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (5) victory in two hours and five minutes. She will next face Shelby Rogers, who rallied for a 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 win against Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens.
The other semifinal of the grass-court event is an all-Russian affair with No. 6 seed Veronika Kudermetova facing No. 7 Ekaterina Alexandrova. Kudermetova eliminated No. 2 seed Belinda Bencic of Switzerland 6-4, 6-2 and Alexandrova crushed Caty McNally 6-0, 6-1 in 43 minutes in the other quarterfinal.
Rothesay Open
No. 7 seed Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil ousted top seed Maria Sakkari of Greece 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 in the quarterfinals in Nottingham, England.
After saving seven of nine break points in the two-hour, 36-minute match, Haddad Maia will take on unseeded Tereza Martincova of the Czech Republic in the semifinals of the grass-court tournament. Martincova knocked out No. 4 seed Shuai Zhang of China, 6-3, 6-2.
Sixth-seeded Alison Riske rallied for a 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 victory over Great Britain’s Harriet Dart and will take on Viktorija Golubic of Switzerland in the other semifinal. Golubic was a 6-2, 7-6 (6) winner against No. 5 seed Ajla Tomljanovic of Australia.
–Field Level Media