BERLIN: Aryna Sabalenka completed a 6-2, 7-6(6) win over Swiss Rebeka Masarova on Thursday to reach the Berlin Open quarter-finals, concluding a match that had been suspended on Wednesday because of slippery conditions.
French Open champion Coco Gauff, however, crashed out after a 6-3 6-3 loss to Chinese qualifier Wang Xinyu in a failed start to her grass campaign, less than two weeks before Wimbledon.
Belarusian Sabalenka, playing for the first time since losing to American Gauff in the French Open final almost two weeks ago, was a set up on Wednesday when play was stopped after tournament officials said the court was getting too slippery with humidity rising after sunset.
Sabalenka, though, was upset on the decision and complained to the referee on Wednesday.
The Belarusian told the umpire: “You are stopping the match because she says that side is slippery? I just played two games on that side.”
When the match resumed on Thursday, the 27-year-old was broken at the start of the second set and found herself 3-1 and 4-2 down.
She kept her cool, however, and broke back with a fine volley to force a tiebreak.
Sabalenka squandered two match points before sealing her victory at her next opportunity when her opponent sank a simple mid-court forehand into the net.
The top seed will next face 11th-ranked Kazakh Elena Rybakina, who beat Czech doubles specialist Katerina Siniakova 6-4, 7-6(7/5).
In Thursday’s later match, Gauff, fresh from her win in Paris, looked far less comfortable on the slick surface, and was broken in the seventh game with Wang clinching the set after the American’s first double faulted on deuce and then sank a dropshot into the net on set point.
The two-time Grand Slam champion broke her opponent to go 3-1 up in the second but Wang outplayed error-prone Gauff to win five games in a row for a straight sets victory.
“After I won the first set I told myself ‘enjoy this for a minute’,” Wang said. “Ok, let’s just enjoy it. I was really happy with how I played. I put a lot of pressure on her. I liked that I hung in there in those tough moments,” said Wang, who next plays Spain’s eighth-seed Paula Badosa.
Czech Marketa Vondrousova, the 2023 Wimbledon champion, needed three sets and two hours and 20 minutes to break the resistance of Russia’s Diana Shnaider.
Vondrousova, who was 6-5 and 30-0 up in the second set, advanced with a 6-3, 6-7(3), 6-3 win and will face lucky loser Ons Jabeur, a two-time Wimbledon finalist, in the last eight.
Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2025
