Donna Vekic of Croatia reached her sixth career grass-court quarterfinal on Wednesday with a 6-7 (1), 6-3, 6-4 win over No. 2 seed Elena Rybakina in the second round of the bett1open in Berlin.
It was the 12th career Top 10 win for Vekic, who needed two hours, 14 minutes to eliminate Rybakina of Kazakhstan. Rybakina, the World No. 3, is the defending Wimbledon champion and had won eight straight matches on grass.
Vekic, ranked No. 23 in the world, controlled the match with her serve. She saved two break points in the first set and lost only 11 points on her serve in 10 games across the final two sets.
No. 3 seed Caroline Garcia of France beat Jaimee Fourlis of Australia, 6-3, 6-2; sixth-seeded Maria Sakkari of Greece defeated Alize Cornet of France, 6-4, 6-2; and Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic, the seventh seed, cruised past Nadia Podoroska of Argentina, 6-1, 6-1.
Other winners were Elina Avanesyan and Veronika Kudermetova of Russia, and Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic.
Rothesay Classic
No. 1 seed Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic sailed by Cristina Bucsa of Spain 6-3, 6-3 on a day that saw all the other seeded players fall in Birmingham, England.
Lin Zhu of China eliminated No. 3 seed Magda Linette of Poland 6-3, 6-0, Brit Harriet Dart defeated No. 5 Anhelina Kalinina of Ukraine 6-3, 3-6, 6-1, Czech Linda Fruhvirtova ousted No. 6 Bernarda Pera 6-1, 7-6 (3), and American Emina Bektas beat Shuai Zhang of China, the No. 7 seed, 6-4, 6-3.
Tereza Martincova of the Czech Republic and Canada’s Rebecca Marino also advanced.
–Field Level Media
