Porsche Friend Iga Swiatek started her Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in style. After her 6-3, 6-4 victory against the Belgian Elise Mertens, the world No. 1 from Poland can still dream of a Porsche Tennis Grand Prix title hat-trick. It was her ninth win in her ninth match in the Porsche Arena. “I’ve had a bit of time to get used the court conditions and I felt pretty confident,” said the four-time Grand Slam champion who had a first round bye. In Friday’s quarterfinal – not before 5.00 pm, she will face Emma Raducanu. Twenty-four hours after her success in the all-Porsche Brand Ambassador encounter with Angelique Kerber, the Briton defeated the Czech shooting star Linda Noskova 6-0, 7-5.
“I didn't really have much time to recover last night. So to come out and play good tennis again is, something that I'm really pleased with,” said Raducanu after the match. “Luckily enough I kept a cool head and was focussed on the big points.“ The 2021 US Open winner is now looking forward to her encounter with title holder Swiatek: “It's obviously going to be a match where I have zero to lose and I think it's one the crowd really wants to see.“
“It was a tough battle“
In the day’s first match on Centre Court, the 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina won 7-6(3), 1-6, 6-4 against Veronika Kudermetova. “It was a tough battle. I lost my concentration a little after the first set,” said the world No. 4 after her first clay-court match of the season. “It’s all the nicer that it was still enough to post the win and reach the quarterfinals here for the first time.” In the round of the last eight, the Kazakh will be up against Jasmine Paolini at 12.30 pm on Friday. The world No. 14 from Italy beat the Tunisian Ons Jabeur, a crowd favourite, in a close match. “I knew it wasn’t going to be easy against Ons,” said Paolini, “Today was a really good match for me and I’m very happy with my performance.”
The Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk will be up against the No. 3 seeded Coco Gauff (USA) in her quarterfinal. In the final match of the day, she overcame the Chinese Qinwen Zheng 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 just before midnight.
The scheduling of Marketa Vondrousova’s match is an excellent indication of just how good the long-standing Stuttgart tournament is this year. So good that the reigning Wimbledon champion had to play Anastasia Potapova on the smaller Court 1. Unfazed, the Czech advanced to the quarterfinal with a two-set 7-6(5), 6-1 success. On Friday, she will meet the world No. 2 and Australian Open winner Aryna Sabalenka – this time fittingly on Centre Court in the Porsche Arena.
Young German doubles pairing out – Laura Siegemund in the semifinal
After their sensational win in the doubles first round, Ella Seidel and Nastasja Schunk from the Porsche Talent Team were back on Court 1 for their first ever WTA quarterfinal. They were however beaten convincingly 6-1, 6-2 by Hao-Ching Chan from Taipei and Veronika Kudermetova. Local hero Laura Siegemund from Porsche Team Germany had every reason to be happy as she and her doubles partner Barbora Krejcikova from the Czech Republic won 6-1, 6-3 against Liudmila Samsonova and Diana Shnaider and was therefore the first team to progress to the semifinals.
