Australian Open: Linete eliminated Garcia, Sabalenka, Vekic and Pliskova in the quarterfinals

Magda Linete caused the big surprise by eliminating one of the title favorites, Caroline Garcia, with the win 7-6(3), 6-4 after two hours, she qualified for the Grand Slam quarterfinals for the first time in her career.

The Pole and world No. 45 took advantage of the fact that Garcia failed to find the first serve (49%), but also the French’s many effortless errors, who reached 33 as opposed to her who only had 14.

In the 1st set, Linet was amazing to find herself with a double break (3-0), with the Pole immediately reclaiming the 1st (3-1) but also not letting the French close the set by breaking it at 5 bandage -5. The set was decided in the tiebreak, where Linet made it 7/3 and 1-0 with three minibreaks.

In the 2nd leg, Linet put even more pressure on Garcia’s serve, who held strong and erased three break points from Poland in the 7th game (4-3), but this was also the last game won for the Frenchwoman with Linet conquering the next three and at the same time their first qualification for the quarterfinals of a major.

Karolina Pliskova and Donna Vekts qualified for the round of 16 of the Australian Open after beating Suai Zhang and Linda Fruvirtova respectively.

The Czech and semi-finalist of the event (2019) will be in the quarter-finals of Melbourne for the fourth time of her career after an easy win against China’s Zhang 6-0, 6-4, in just 57 minutes.

The former world no. The only “thorn” that didn’t bother her was the 2nd serve with a percentage of 33%.

After a stormy first set, which the Czech won with an impressive bagel, she met partial resistance in the second leg from the Chinese, who even took a 4-2 lead by breaking her opponent’s serve.

Pliskova’s response was immediate as the Czech equalized first with a breakback to make it 4-4, while a little later she qualified with another break in Round 8 where she will face Poland’s Magda Linet who defeats France’s Caroline Garcia defeated 7-6(3), 6-4.

The qualification for Donna Vekic, which was also imposed, was more difficult 6-2, 1-6, 6-3 the amazing 17-year-old Czech Linda Fruvirtova after 2 hours and 9 minutes.

The young Czech might have had better percentages on her serve, but the big difference was the break opportunities with Vekic at 5/6 while Fruvirtova finished the match at 4/10.

The two players won easily from one set, with Fruvirtova even breaking first in the deciding set (2-1). However, Vekic managed to limit the damage and take it back immediately (2-2) and ‘hit’ again at the end of the game, leading to the 5-3 to seal the qualification with her serve.

Notably, Vekic will be in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open for the first time in a Grand Slam, and for the second time in her career after 2019 and the US Open.

In the round of 16, the Croatian tennis player meets Arina Sabalenka, who in turn defeats Belinda Bencic 7-5, 6-2.

SOURCE: TENNIS24