WTA Budapest: Van Uytvanck, Kozlova, Begu and Alexandrova reach quarters



by JOVICA ILIC

WTA Budapest: Van Uytvanck, Kozlova, Begu and Alexandrova reach quarters

The top seed Alison Van Uytvanck is through to the quarter-final in Budapest after a hard-fought 6-4, 7-5 win over the 17-year-old Iga Swiatek in an hour and 42 minutes. Iga played a great match against Olga Danilovic in the opening round although she failed to produce that against the Belgian despite a great effort, winning only two points less than Alison, losing serve three times while breaking the better-ranked opponent once.

Van Uytvanck opened a 3-2 lead in the first set, saving three break points in the remaining service games for a 6-4, scoring another break in the fifth game of the second set to open a 6-4, 5-3 lead. Ready to fight until the end, Iga broke back at love in game ten while her rival served for the win, only to suffer another break at 5-5 before the Belgian sealed the deal with a nice hold in the following game for the place in the quarters.

Kateryna Kozlova stormed over Madison Brengle to oust the American 6-0, 6-1 in 58 minutes, saving seven out of eight break points and dominating on the return to grab 12 of the 13 games. Interestingly, Brengle landed 80% of the first serve in although that gave her absolutely nothing, dropping unreal 70% of the points behind the initial shot to face ten break points and suffer seven breaks for one of the biggest defeats of her career.

The 5th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova took down Arantxa Rus 6-4, 6-0 in an hour and 15 minutes, fending off four out of five break points and winning more than half of the return points, trailing 4-3 before winning nine straight games to seal the deal in great style.

In the longest match of the day, the 8th seed Marketa Vondrousova prevailed against Anna Blinkova 7-6, 3-6, 6-3 in two hours and 34 minutes, in the encounter with 28 break points! Both players gave the serve away seven times and they pushed each other to the limits right from the start, with the opening set lasting almost 80 minutes.

Blinkova led 4-2 and she had a set point on the return at 6-5 and four more at 6-2 in the tie break, only to lose six straight points and hand the set to the Czech. The second set kicked off with five consecutive breaks and Blinkova secured it with another one in game nine, gathering the momentum before the decider where Marketa rattled off three straight breaks to seal the deal in the quarter-final.

Marketa Vondrousova Anna Blinkova