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The two top seeds left in the draw at the Citi Open crashed out in the quarter-finals on Friday. Liudmila Samsonova upset second seed Emma Raducanu while Xiyu Wang beat the fourth-seeded Azarenka. Earlier, Azarenka played her rain-postponed second-round match against Tereza Martincova on Friday.
Azarenka won 7-6(7), 6-2 after two hours and 10 minutes. Against lucky loser Wang though, there wasn’t much that the former world no. 1 was able to do as the former came through, 6-3, 6-1 in an hour and 20 minutes. Wang won 72% of her first-serve points to Azarenka’s 51% and 41% of her second-serve points to her opponent’s 27%.
She also saved three of the five break points she faced while converting six break points on Azarenka’s serve. In the semi-finals, Wang will take on Samsonova.
Citi Open: Kaia Kanepi's still at it
Samsonova needed an hour and 46 minutes to prevail 7-6(6), 6-1 against the Briton.
Samsonova won 79% of her first-serve points and converted five of the seven break points she had on Raducanu’s serve. For the match, she finished with 78 points, 11 more than the latter’s 67. Daria Saville closed out Rebecca Marino’s run in Washington DC.
The Australian secured a 6-1, 7-5 win in an hour and 19 minutes. She saved six of the seven break points she faced while making good of five of the six break point chances that came her way. Saville won 65 points to the Canadian’s 50 for the match.
Looking to reach her first final in almost five years at the Citi Open, Saville will take on sixth seed Kaia Kanepi. The Estonian played the longest match of the day, at two hours and 33 minutes, to stage a comeback win against Anna Kalinskaya.
The world no. 37 dropped the opening set in a tie-break but bounced back to win, 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-3. Photo Credit: Citi Open Twitter