Angelique Kerber has reached the quarter-finals of Eastbourne for the fourth time since 2012. The fourth seeded Kieler presented herself again in strong form at the 6:1, 6:1 against the world ranking-43rd Danielle Collins (USA) and underlined her qualities on grass just one week before the start of the Wimbledon tournament (starting Monday). In the round of the last eight, Kerber will now play Daria Kasatkina of Russia (No. 7) on Thursday.
After only 51 minutes, Kerber turned her third match point with a backhand winner – and was also happy about her quick victory for another reason. The 30-year-old managed to finish before the last group match of the German national football team at the World Cup in Russia against South Korea.
Kerber, a supporter of FC Bayern Munich, is known as a big football fan. The match against Collins was originally set as the third match of the day on Court 2. But suddenly the match was listed as game number two on the Centre Court. “I was very happy about that,” Kerber said with a wink.
And the world ranking elves, who surprisingly lost their opening game at their lawn premiere in Mallorca in 2018 just over a week ago, seamlessly continued their formidable performance from the previous day. On Tuesday, Kerber defeated former WTA World Champion Dominika Cibulkova (Slovakia) 6-3, 6-3.
The former number one acted aggressively, moved excellently and showed why experts like Toni Nadal had her on the list of top favourites in Wimbledon.
In the first set against Collins, Kerber scored 27 of the 39 points – more than two-thirds of the points. However, the American from St. Petersburg in Florida, who successfully completed her studies in media science at university, made a number of slight mistakes.
However, Kerber repeatedly forced the outsider into “Errors”. After 25 minutes, the two-time Grand Slam winner took the first set when a Collins shot sailed out. After that, “Angie” did not give up her first game in the second round until a 4-0 lead – and still made it into the catacombs in time for the kick-off of the German World Cup game.