Andrea Petkovic continued her successful run at the WTA tournament in Linz. On Thursday evening the German defeated her compatriot Tatjana Maria 6:1, 6:3.
“These are German championships for me so far, I didn’t even need to come to Austria for them,” Petkovic said after the match. “It’s always difficult when you know your opponent so well.”
Completely contrary to her match the day before, Petkovic had an excellent start into the match. The 31-year-old quickly took command and took the first set in less than half an hour.
Also in the second run Petkovic took the lead with 3:1. She also survived a delicate situation with 0:30 on her own serve and entered her fourth quarter finals of the current season without any problems. There she has a perfect balance of 3-0 wins in 2018 so far.
The number two of the tournament, Kiki Bertens, was surprisingly eliminated. The Russian Margarita Gasparyan won 7:5, 2:6, 7:6(3) and scored her first victory over a top-10 player in her career.
Bertens was already leading with 3:1 in the set, but had to accept the rebreak a little later. Afterwards she could not use any of her six break possibilities and lost in the tiebreak.
This means that Bertens has to suffer a setback in the WTA Race to Singapore. A victory over the Russian would have been the last qualifying place for the year-end tournament for the time being. Gasparyan, who plays her backhand one-handed, will now face Camila Giorgi in the quarter-finals, who beat Jil Teichmann on Wednesday.
Already in the early afternoon the defending champion, Barbora Strycova, clearly prevailed against her Czech compatriot Kristyna Pliskova. In a one-sided game lasting less than 50 minutes, she won 6-0, 6-1. Strycova is the highest seeded player in the tournament after the defeats of Julia Görges and Bertens.