Bencic, Kudermetova set up rematch in Berlin quarters
Belinda Bencic and Anna Kalinskaya faced off for the second week in a row and the Swiss woman came out a winner once again, this time in three sets
Swiss Belinda Bencic, the No 8 seed, defeated Russian wildcard Anna Kalinskaya in three sets to advance to the quarter-finals of the Berlin Open at Rot-Weiss Tennis Club on Thursday.
Bencic, who won the singles gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics last year, overcame a second set lapse to win 6-4, 1-6, 6-1 in one hour and 56 minutes.
The 17th ranked Swiss woman will next meet Veronika Kudermetova, who also needed three sets to beat defending champion Liudmila Samsonova 6-3, 6-7, 6-1.
The two players just met last week in the Rosmalen quarter-finals where Kudermetova won in straight sets to equal their career head-to-head at 4-4.
Prior to that, Bencic had won three consecutive matches against the Russian woman.
Berlin WTA 500, second-round results (Rot-Weiss Tennis Club, grass, EUR 611.210)
- Ons Jabeur (1) beat Alycia Parks (Q): 6-2, 7-6 (8)
- Maria Sakkari (2) beat Daria Saville (Q): 6-1, 7-5
- Aliaksandra Sasnovich beat Andrea Petkovic: 6-4, 6-4
- Daria Kasatkina (6) beat Ekaterina Alexandrova: 5-7, 6-1, 6-1
- Karolina Pliskova (4) beat Bianca Andreescu: 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (7)
- Xinyu Wang vs. Coco Gauff