STUTTGART, Germany – US Open champion Emma Raducanu defeated Germany´s Tamara Korpatsch 6-0, 2-6, 6-1 at the Stuttgart Open to set up a quarter-final match against top-ranked Iga Swiatek.
It will be the 19-year-old Raducanu’s first match against a top 10 opponent, AP reported.
Raducanu, who won at Flushing Meadows as a 150th-ranked qualifier last year, could break into the top 10 herself if she wins the Stuttgart title in what is her first professional tournament on clay. She’s currently ranked 12th.
Raducanu and Swiatek met once in juniors, in the 2018 Junior Wimbledon quarterfinals. Swiatek won that match 6-0, 6-1 en route to her lone Junior Grand Slam singles title.
“Of course [Swiatek is] in great form, so it’s going to take a very high level from me to make it competitive,” Raducanu said, after her win.
“I’m looking forward to going out there. She’s No.1 in the world; she’s won all the tournaments recently, so I feel like I’ve got no pressure.”
Into her first quarter-final of the season, Raducanu’s latest win is projected to nudge her higher up the rankings to at least a new career-high position of World No.11. A Top 10 debut is a possibility for Raducanu if she goes on to win the Stuttgart title.
Raducanu, playing her first Hologic WTA Tour clay-court event, has won back-to-back tour-level matches for only the second time since her historic run to the US Open title as a qualifier ranked No.150.
She also won two in a row en route to the Cluj-Napoca quarterfinals at the end of last year.
“Second set is where I came out swinging, I had the match in control,” said Raducanu.
“And then [Korpatsch] started playing some really good tennis, and maybe I dropped my level a little bit, but she capitalized really well. The way I regrouped for the third set, I think, was what I was most pleased about.”
Korpatsch’s home-soil run comes to an end with the loss. The World No.118 got into the main draw after Jasmine Paolini’s withdrawal and then upset Camila Giorgi in the first round.
It was the first time in three main-draw appearances that Korpatsch reached the Stuttgart second round.
Raducanu served splendidly in the bagel opener, winning 90 per cent of her first-service points and never facing a break point.
Raducanu, though, swiftly took control in the third set, following a sturdy return with a putaway at net to break for 2-0.
A return winner gave the Brit a second break for 5-1, and though she faced a break point in the last game, Raducanu recovered, closing out the win with a crosscourt winner.
Kontaveit’s two prior encounters with Alexandrova went down to the wire, with Kontaveit winning those by third-set scores of 7-5 and 7-6 respectively.
In fact, Alexandrova almost ended Kontaveit’s indoor streak last year, when she led 6-4, 4-0 in the Moscow final before Kontaveit came back to win.
Thursday’s meeting followed the same pattern. Kontaveit did not serve out the match at 5-4 in the third set, and the pair eventually moved into a tiebreak.
There, a netted return by Alexandrova at 5-5 lined up the first match point of the day for either player, which Kontaveit converted with a rally backhand winner.
Earlier, second-seeded Paula Badosa defeated Kazakhstan´s Elena Rybakina 6-2, 4-6, 7-6 (4) and will face Ons Jabeur in the quarter-finals. Jabeur defeated Daria Kasatkina 6-3, 6-3.
Third-seeded Aryna Sabalenka defeated Canada´s Bianca Andreescu 6-1, 3-6, 6-2 and will face Anett Kontaveit or Ekaterina Alexandrova.
Fouth-seeded Maria Sakkari retired against Laura Siegemund as the German was leading 6-4, 3-1. Siegemund next plays Russian player Liudmila Samsonova, who defeated Karolina Pliskova 6-4, 6-4.
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