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Magda Linette was in total shock and disbelief after stunning fourth-seeded Caroline Garcia to reach her first-ever Grand Slam quarterfinal at the Australian Open. Linette, ranked at No 45 in the world, defeated reigning WTA Finals champion Garcia 7-6 (3) 6-4.
Garcia was among the top favorites for the Australian Open title and Linette managed to knock her out of the tournament. "I still can't believe it. I don't know what happened. I'm speechless really. I don't want to say I didn't expect it, because coming on the court I was confident with how well I was playing, but she's such an amazing opponent and such a tough one, especially on a big stage.
I'm just glad I stayed composed throughout the whole first set, and managed to come back again," Linette said during her on-court interview, per the WTA website.
Linette focused on her game against Garcia, it paid off
Garcia, who entered the game as the favorite, started the match with back-to-back breaks and a 3-0 lead.
Down by two breaks, Linette refused to quit as she broke back Garcia in the fourth and 10th games to eventually force a tie-break. In the tie-break, Linette won three consecutive points from 4-3 up to win the first set. After stealing the first set from Garcia, Linette missed out on a break point in the first game of the second set and also didn't realize any of her three break points in the seventh game.
However, Linette kept pressing on Garcia's service games as she broke the Frenchwoman in the eighth game for a 5-3 lead, before serving out for the match in the following game. In her next match, Linette plays against former world No 1 Karolina Pliskova.
Linette has been playing great so far and by beating Garcia she has proved that she can beat a big-time player. It remains to be seen if Linette can now also beat Pliskova.