Elena Rybakina beat Elise Mertens 6-4 6-2 in 1 hour and 46 minutes to win her 11thconsecutive match at the Miami Open. Rybakina won her first WTA 1000 title in Indian Wells earlier this month. .
Rybakina has extended her win-loss record to 19-4 this season. The reigning Wimbledon champion is tied with Australian Open winner Aryna Sabalenka for the most match-wins on the WTA Tour this year.
Mertens converted her fourth break point in the seventh game to take a 4-3 lead. Rybakina earned a break-back point chance in the next game after two double faults from Mertens and converted it to draw level to 4-4. Rybakina held three set points on return in the 10th game and forced an error long to convert her third opportunity.
Rybakina converted her fourth break point at the start of the second set to take a 2-0 lead. The Kazakh player saved four break points at 3-1.
Rybakina improved her her head-to-head record against Mertens to 5-2.
Rybakina set up a quarter final match against Martina Trevisan, who beat Jelena Ostapenko 6-3 6-3. Rybakina will face Trevisan for the first time in her career. Trevisan has reached her first WTA 1000 quarter final on her debut in Miami. She has become the first Italian player to reach this stage since Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci achieved this feat.
Trevisan broke three times to win the first set 6-3. Ostapenko opened up a 2-0 lead, but Trevisan came back by winning five consecutive games. The Italian player saved four break-back points in a five-deuce seventh game.
“It means a lot because I never won a match here. Match after match I am collecting experience that’s helping me a lot, especially in this type of match when you play against an important player like Ostapenko”, said Trevisan.
Jessica Pegula beat Magda Linette 6-1 7-5 to reach her fourth quarter final.
Pegula lost to Iga Swiatek in the semifinal at Indian Wells last year.
Pegula broke three games to race out to a 5-0 lead. Linette pulled one of the two breaks back in the sixth game for 1-5. Pegula broke for the third time at love to win the first set 6-1.
Linette built up a 5-2 lead in the first and seventh games of the second set. Pegula broke back in the eighth game, as Linette was serving for the set. Pegula pulled both breaks back in the 10th game to draw level to 5-5. The US player broke again in the 12th game to win her fifth consecutive game.
“Everything was working, and then in the second set things got tough. I felt like I was going for too much at times, but I am glad I was able to get some energy there and finish in two”, said Pegula.
The US player will face Anastasia Potapova, who beat Zheng Quinwen 6-4 7-6 (7-4). Pegula beat Potapova 16 days ago at the BNP Paribas Open.
Potapova converted four of five break point. Both players traded breaks in the third and fourth games to draw to 2-2. Potapova earned her second break in the seventh game to take a 5-3 lead. She rallied from 0-30 down, as she was serving for the set at 5-4 and won the final point with a forehand. Zheng made three consecutive backhand errors at 4-4 in the tie-break.
Pegula came back from 1-3 down in the third set to beat Potapova 3-6 6-4 7-5 in the third set.
“I was pretty close to getting the win, but she was better that day. I worked on some things since then, and I really hope it’s going to work”, said Potapova.
