Belinda Bencic continued her scratchy return from injury as she survived a close shave for the third time in as many matches to move on to the semi-finals of the Ricoh Open Grass Court Championships in the Netherlands on Friday.
The top-seeded Bencic prevailed over fellow Swiss Viktorija Golubic 7-6 7-6 in an intense battle that went on for two hours and 14 minutes. There wasn’t much to separate the two, but Bencic emerged victorious in the battle of nerves.
Earlier in the draw, Bencic had dodged one bullet off Belgian Alison Van Uytvanck to pull through the opener via third-set tiebreaker, before rallying from a set down to get the better of American Varvara Lepchenko in the second round.
Up next for the 19-year-old Swiss, awaits a stern challenge in third-seeded Frenchwoman Kristina Mladenovic, who ended the dream run of Russian qualifier Elise Mertens, triumphing 7-5 6-3 in the combat that lasted 82 minutes.
Coco Vandeweghe, the No. 6 seed, had a routine day in the office as she hardly broke a sweat to beat Russia’s Evgeniya Rodina 6-2 6-2. Unleashing 7 aces, the American didn’t offer any break-point opportunity to cruise through in 58 minutes.
Moving on to the last-four stage, Vandeweghe is scheduled to square-off against countrywoman Madison Brengle, who got the better of Kateryna Kozlova of Ukraine, winning 7-5 6-4 to complete the semi-final line-up here.
