Ons Jabeur booked her place in the quarter-finals of the Bett1 Open in Berlin on Thursday. The tournament top seed got past Alycia Parks, 6-2, 7-6(8) in an hour and 31 minutes. The Tunisian saved a set point in the second set before claiming the win.
Jabeur won 65% of her first-serve points to the American’s 59% and 60% of her second-serve points to the latter’s 38%. Jabeur was outnumbered by her opponent in terms of winners – she had 13, five fewer than the latter’s 18 but Parks’ unforced error count made the difference in directing the match’s conclusion in the end – she had 31 unforced errors, 14 more than Jabeur’s 17. In terms of break points saved and won, Jabeur saved three of the five break points she faced while converting four break points on Parks’ serve.
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After the match, Jabeur said, “(It was) difficult to play with that (low number) of rallies. Especially her serve is really fast, so I had to adapt my return. (In) the second set, she started to play much better, and I had to take my chances when I had the break. It’s tough, I should have taken my chances when I was serving (in the tiebreak). I knew if it was gonna be 6-5 it would be really tough for me. But I’m glad I stayed calm afterwards.”
Next up for Jabeur is Aliaksandra Sasnovich who’d won her round-of-16 match earlier, on Wednesday.
Eighth seed Belinda Bencic also reached the quarters in the German capital. The Swiss defeated Anna Kalinskaya, 6-4, 1-6, 6-1 in an hour and 55 minutes. Bencic will play Veronika Kudermetova next. Kudermetova took out the defending champion, Liudmila Samsonova, 6-3, 6-7(5), 6-1 in two hours and nine minutes in their second-round match.
Seventh seed Coco Gauff also moved into the quarter-finals of the Bett1 Open. The American posted a 6-0, 6-4 win over Xinyu Wang in 63 minutes and will play fourth seed Karolina Pliskova next. This is the first time Gauff’s made it to the quarters of a tournament on grass.
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