Sabine Lisicki has reached the quarter-finals of the 125cc tournament in Taipei. The former Wimbledon finalist, currently number 262 in the WTA ranking, defeated Elena Rybakina from Kazakhstan 6:4, 6:3.
After 79 minutes Wildcard owner Lisicki turned her second match point against the world’s number 123 and in 2018 she is in the final eight for the second time. Most recently, she had reached the semi-finals of the higher-ranked International Tournament in January 2018 at the same location.
On Wednesday, the 29-year-old, who had previously suffered three defeats in a row, defeated eighth seed Misaki Doi from Japan 6-3, 6-2.
Lisicki will face local hero En-Shuo Liang in Friday’s semi-final game, who will be in 276th place.
Lisicki made the point in the duel with 19-year-old Rybakina in 73 percent of the cases when her first serve came. Three times she had to give up her service, five times the Berliner could break the Kazakh. In the game against Doi she had succeeded in ten aces among other things.