Two tie-breaks, no breaks, one place in the next round
Not a single break in the first set. Not one. Then came a second set in which Sloane Stephens nearly let it all slip away.
Down 5-2, with Janice Tjen serving, and facing two set points. The American held firm. She dug out the game, hauled herself back to 5-5, and dragged the Indonesian into a second tie-break. 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3). Guadalajara Open quarter-finals.
Tjen was the No. 5 seed. She fired 11 aces. Stephens managed two. She did not save a single break point on her own serve. And still she won.
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An all-American quarter-final
Next up: Peyton Stearns. A fellow American who just knocked out the No. 4 seed. Diane Parry went down in straight sets, 6-2, 7-5.
Stephens, though, brings a resume that few players on tour can match. US Open champion in 2017, Roland Garros runner-up the following year. Then came the injuries, the slide down the rankings, the anonymous tournaments and the qualifiers. Now she is back in the last eight of a WTA event.
Elsewhere in Guadalajara, Czech No. 3 seed Sara Bejlek saw off Alycia Parks 6-4, 6-3. Spain’s Cristina Bucsa did the job against Hungary’s Panna Udvardy, 6-4, 6-4. The draw is tightening up, and there are still plenty around who could make Stephens work for it.
Semenistaja ends a nine-match losing streak
In Sao Paulo, on a SP Open badly disrupted by rain, Latvian Darja Semenistaja finally got a win. She had been waiting a while: nine straight defeats in main-draw matches, including first-round exits at Wimbledon and the US Open, two tournaments she reached as a lucky loser.
She beat Japanese player Hayu Kinoshita 7-5, 6-4. No. 9 seed, no less.
In the other first-round matches, Armenian Elina Avanesyan beat Julia Riera 6-2, 6-4. Serbia’s Teodora Kostovic did the same to Brazil’s Victoria Luiza Barros. And Argentina’s Nadia Podoroska knocked out Italy’s Lucrezia Stefanini 6-3, 6-4.
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