Raducanu goes down to Kalinina as WTA quarter-finals are set in Madrid

Two more seeded players took a tumble in Madrid on Tuesday, including Emma Raducanu. The Brit lost to Anhelina Kalinina as the Ukrainian continued her impressive run into the quarter-finals.

Emma Raducanu, Indian Wells 2021 – AI / Reuters / Panoramic

Ricky Dimon

May 4, 2022

Mutua Madrid Open | Draw | Order of play

Emma Raducanu’s clay-court campaign is off to a decent enough start, but additional Roland-Garros preparation will have to wait until Rome after the reigning U.S. Open champion lost to Anhelina Kalinina in round three of the Mutua Madrid Open on Tuesday. Kalinina earned her place in the quarter-finals of this WTA 1000 event with a 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 victory after two hours and 19 minutes.

Raducanu reached the semis two weeks ago in Stuttgart and picked up straight-set wins this week over Tereza Martincova and Marta Kostyuk. However, a red-hot Kalinina in addition to an apparent back issue proved to be too much for the 19-year-old.

The wins keep coming 🙌

🇺🇦 Anhelina Kalinina is into her 𝙁𝙄𝙍𝙎𝙏 WTA 1000 quarterfinal! Knocking out another Major champion in Raducanu.#MMOPEN pic.twitter.com/nyNNr0wwJl
— wta (@WTA) May 3, 2022

“I thought it was a good-level match, to be honest,” Raducanu assessed. “I think that Anhelina played a really good level, especially in the first set. She gave nothing away. She was neutralizing all of my first serves really deep, and I found it quite difficult to do and build on that compared to some other matches.

“Yeah, great credit to her. She played a good match.”

Jabeur, Pegula only two seeds remaining in Madrid

Also advancing to the last eight on Wednesday were Sara Sorribes Tormo, Jessica Pegula, and Jil Teichmann. Pegula, who beat Bianca Andreescu 7-5, 6-1, is the only seeded player remaining in the top half of the draw and one of only two left in the entire field (No. 8 seed Ons Jabeur is in a quarter-final against Simona Halep at the bottom of the bracket).

Along with the ninth-seeded Raducanu, No. 16 Elena Rybakina exited with a 6-3, 6-1 loss to Teichmann.

In addition to Jabeur-Halep, the other three quarterfinal clashes are Pegula vs. Sorribes Tormo, Kalinina vs. Teichmann, and Amanada Anisimova vs. Ekaterina Alexandrova.