On Thursday, April 4, the third round matches of the WTA-500 tournament were played in Charleston (USA). Two Russian tennis players have reached this stage and both played today. Russia’s first racket, Daria Kasatkina, seeded fourth, took to the court alongside Ukrainian representative Angelina Kalinina (15). Kasatkina in the second round turned out to be stronger than the American Ashley Kruger (6:3, 0:6, 6:1), and Kalinina confidently beat the 2018 Australian Open champion Caroline Wozniacki, who competed with a wild card, 6:2, 6:3.
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Two Russians advanced to the third round in Charleston. Kasatkina will fight the Ukrainian
Previously, Daria and Angelina played together four times. And three of these meetings were with the Russian woman. Last season they played one match, in Eastbourne, and Kasatkina won a crushing victory 6:3, 6:1. Today the Russian woman was stronger again.
Kalinina frankly failed in the first set. The Ukrainian did not win a single match. He always had big problems on serve, so on the first serve he only scored three points out of 14, that is, only 21%, a terrible indicator. Kasatkina, however, also had difficulties in his games. But, unlike his opponent, he corrected his mistakes and generally looked better in the exchanges. In the second game, the Russian recovered a break point, in the fourth she went with 0:30 and only lost her serve in the sixth. Well, in the seventh game, Daria took the win 6-1 in 32 minutes.
In the second set, Kasatkina immediately picked up her game and then began an endless parade of breaks. Kalinina improved his first serve percentage (from 52% in the first set to 79% in the second), but in the rallies his advantage was on his opponent’s side. The Russian, with the score 4: 2 in her favor, could have interrupted the break festival, but she gave up her serve at 40: 0, losing five points in a row due to her inaccuracies.
In the ninth game, Daria, who served for the match with 5:3, did not take advantage of the match point, missing an attack from her opponent. And yet, this fight ended how it probably should have ended: Kasatkina’s ninth straight break of a possible nine. (In other words, the Ukrainian was never able to get her serve back.) Kalinina, who was serving at 4:5, reached the game ball, but then broke two rallies and on match point Daria successfully attacked-6: 1. , 6:4 for 1 hour 25 minutes.
In the quarterfinals, Kasatkina will play against the Romanian number 83 in the world, Jacqueline Christian, who has already eliminated two seeds from the draw: Madison Keys (8) and Emma Navarro (10).
And Veronika Kudermetova (9) played with the Brazilian Beatrice Haddad-Maya (5); This meeting took place late on the night of April 5, Moscow time. In the second round, both Kudermetova and Haddad-Maia avoided dropping a set, beating Shelby Rogers and Caroline Dolehide, respectively.
Before this, Veronica and Beatrice, who won the WTA Minor Final Tournament in doubles last year, had only met once. In the quarterfinals of Tokyo 2022, the Russian turned out to be stronger: 6:7 (4:7), 7:6 (8:6), 6:1. Kudermetova also won today.
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In the first set, Haddad-Maia initially had the advantage. The Brazilian took someone else’s serve in the sixth game and took a 4-2 lead. However, Kudermetova took the initiative. The Russian won the next three games, including two on the receiving end. With 5:4 in her favor, Veronica could not serve for the game – 5:5. But in the end she did not give up and won the set, giving up only one point in each game: 7:5 in 56 minutes.
The second game began with Haddad-Maia breaking his serve. But after that, Kudermetova took six games in a row, hanging a hidden “flyer”. At the same time, in the fourth game Veronica saved herself from a triple break point, and in the seventh, when the score was 5:1 in her favor, she missed a triple match point on reception, but converted the fourth – 7 :5, 6:1 in 1 hour 38 minutes.
In the quarterfinals, Kudermetova will take to the court with the seventh racket in the world, Maria Sakkari, who is the third seed.
In addition, the final matches of the second round were played in the tournament. World number six Onse Jabeur (2), the 2023 Charleston champion, lost to WTA number 22 Danielle Collins. The match, which lasted 2 hours and 3 minutes, ended with the score 6:3, 1:6, 6:3 in favor of the American. But this cannot be called either sensation or surprise. Jabeur has been experiencing problems with her knee lately and this was her fifth consecutive loss. And thanks to this, Ons will drop three places in the classification next Monday and will become ninth.
Collins, on the other hand, is in great shape. Last week, Danielle won the thousandth title in Miami, the biggest title of her career, and here in Charleston, before meeting Jabeur, she knocked out former world number two Paula Badosa.
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Additionally, on the same day, Collins played a third-round match against 2017 US Open champion Sloane Stephens. Danielle won this match even more convincingly: 6:2, 6:2 in 1 hour and 12 minutes. “I had seasons in which I had injuries and many health problems. I was with my family, it helped me. I think we all have families… It’s good to get to the point where I feel like I’m in good shape and I can win two matches in one day,” she said after the match.
This victory was Collins’ tenth in a row. Her next opponent is Elise Mertens (11).
The Five Hundred in Charleston will end on April 7. Follow all the events of the “Championship”.
