Two-time defending champion Elina Svitolina dropped just three games in her 6-1 6-2 over Garbine Muguruza in just 62 minutes to reach the quarter final at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships for the fourth consecutive year.
Svitolina has improved her winning streak in Dubai to 11 consecutive matches. If she wins the Dubai tournament for the third consecutive year, she would become the third woman to win three titles or more at this tournament after Justine Henin and Venus Williams. Svitolina faced a tougher match than the result suggests. Muguruza pushed to deuce in the first game, but Svitolina held her service game before breaking serve in another deuce game to open up a 2-0 lead.
Muguruza broke straight back in the third game for 1-2. Svitolina won four consecutive game to win the first set 6-1. Muguruza could not hold her serve during the first set.
The Spanish player held her serve for the first time in the opening game of the second set. Svitolina won five consecutive games with a double break in the third and fifth games to open up a 5-1 lead and closed out the second set 6-2 with a hold of serve at deuce after 62 minutes.
“Muguruza is obviously a good player. She has been on top for a long time. She won the big tournaments. She can come back into the match in any moment. That’s why I just had to go out there and be ready for everything. In the end, that’s why the score is like this, because I was really on it today”, said Svitolina.
Svitolina will face Carla Suarez Navarro, who beat Kristina Mladenovic 7-5 7-5 after 1 hour and 53 minutes in a match featuring 26 break points and no aces. Mladenovic, who upset Naomi Osaka yesterday, raced out to a 5-1 lead, but she wasted six set points in the next three games and dropped six consecutive games to lose the first set 7-5. Both players broke each other six times in the first eight games in the second set en route to 5-5, when Suarez Navarro earned another break. The Spaniard closed out the match with a hold in the 12th game to reach the quarter final.
Karolina Pliskova battled past Allison Riske 7-6 (7-3) 7-6 (7-5) after 2 hours and 4 minutes to score her sixth win in her seven head-to-head matches to score her sixth win in her seven head-to-head matches against the US player.
Riske did not face a break point and earned a break point chance in the seventh game of the first set. Pliskova fended it off, when Riske missed a backhand. Pliskova clinched the tie-break 7-3 after Riske made a backhand error. The second set featured 17 break points. Both players traded breaks in the fourth and fifth games. Pliskova saved two set points at 4-5 to win the hard-fought game after seven deuces. Both players traded breaks at love to set up another tie-break. Pliskova clinched the tie-break 7-5 after a double fault from Riske.
