Badosa survives battle against daughter of former Grand Slam champ to reach San Jose quarters

Spain’s Paula Badosa, the second seed, moved into the last eight of the San Jose Open by edging out American qualifier Elizabeth Mandlik 6-2, 5-7, 7-6 (5) at San Jose State University Tennis Center on Wednesday night.

Mandlik, a 21-year-old American ranked No 240 in the world, surprised many including her much more experienced opponent with her level of play as she took the match to a third set and then built a 5-3 lead in the decider.

However, Badosa fought back to take the match into a tiebreaker which she won 7-5 to complete the win in two hours and 34 minutes.

Badosa, ranked No 4, is through to play the winner of the highly anticipated clash between sixth seed Coco Gauff and former world No 1 Naomi Osaka next.

More on Elizabeth Mandlik, the player Badosa beat to reach the quarters

While not many tennis fans may be familiar with Mandlik yet, the American, who defeated Alison Riske-Amritraj in straight sets in the first round after coming through the qualifying draw, has been rising up the ranks rapidly in 2022. She started the season as world No 489 and will now break into the top 200 next week

Mandlik is the daughter of four-time Grand Slam winner Hana Mandlikova, who won the the 1980 Australian Open, 1981 French Open, 1985 US Open, and the 1987 Australian Open, as well as the 1989 US Open doubles title.

Given that, it’s obvious then Mandlik has been given a lot of support and help from her Hall of Famer mother as she told the WTA Insider in a recent interview.

“There’s disadvantages and advantages, but what helps me is that I know that she knows how hard it is”, Mandlik said. “She helps me just lift myself up. She’s always positive no matter what because she knows I’m trying my best. She knows everything in the court and off the court so it’s very easy to like talk to her about it. And if I say, I don’t want to practice, she’ll say don’t practice. She already built that in me that I know how much to push myself. So she doesn’t want to push me any more because I already have it so high, you know?”

San Jose WTA 500, other second-round matches (San Jose State University Tennis Center, hard, USD 757.900, most recent results first):

• Coco Gauff vs. Naomi Osaka
• Maria Sakkari vs. Shelby Rogers
• Caroline Dolehide vs. Aryna Sabalenka
• Claire Liu vs. Veronika Kudermetova
• Ons Jabeur vs. Madison Keys: thursday
• Daria Kasatkina (7) beat Taylor Townsend (Q): 6-4, 6-0
• Amanda Anisimova beat Karolina Pliskova (8): 3-6, 7-5, 6-1

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