Laura Siegemund has once again celebrated an experience of success on her way back to her old form and has reached the round of 16 at the WTA sand court tournament in Moscow. The Metzinger, who dropped to rank 217 in the world rankings after a long injury break, defeated Alizé Cornet (France), who was seeded in seventh place, 4:6, 6:2, 6:3.
After 2:09 hours Siegemund turned her first match point against the new Gstaad winner Cornet. The 28-year-old, number 34 in the WTA ranking, had won the tournament in Switzerland on Sunday. Therefore, the first round match could only be played on Wednesday. Siegemund will face Kateryna Kozlova from Ukraine in the match for the quarter-finals on Thursday.
In the first set against Cornet, the Swabian gave up her service to lose the set to zero. But Siegemund did not let up in her opening match at the “Moscow River Cup” and won five games in a row after the 2:2 in the second set. The 30-year-old set the course for victory when she took a 4-1 lead in the decisive set.
Although the bravely fighting Cornet came back to 3:4, Siegemund kept a cool head. Altogether there were 15 breaks in the game – nine of them went to the Germans, who were rewarded for their good performance. The top seeded Wimbledon semi-finalist Julia Görges (Bad Oldesloe) had reached the round of 16 on Tuesday and will meet Natalia Vikhlyantseva from Russia on Wednesday.
Last week Siegemund, Stuttgart winner of 2017 and in the second half of last season, had already been set back by a cruciate ligament rupture and reached the quarter-finals in Bucharest. There, the psychologist had only just lost to Petra Martic from Croatia in three sets.