Eastbourne: Italy's Camila Giorgi reached the quarterfinal of the Rothesay International here on Wednesday after beating Spain's Garbine Muguruza 7-5, 6-3 in 1 hour and 53 minutes in the third round.
With this win, Giorgi moved into her third career quarterfinal in Eastbourne, having first reached the last eight here in 2014 and then the semifinals in 2021.The Italian also notched back-to-back quarterfinals on grass in 2022, following her last-eight run in Birmingham last week.
Giorgi's victory is her 15th career Top 10 win, and second of 2022 following her upset of Aryna Sabalenka in the third round of Roland Garros. She improved her head-to-head against Muguruza to 3-2, posting a win over the former World No.1 for the first time since the 2014 New Haven quarterfinals.
No 12 seed Giorgi took some time to find her groove, particularly on serve. Of the World No 26's seven double faults, five came in her first four service games. A back-to-back pair paved the way for Muguruza to break for 2-1, and another duo gave the Spaniard a point for the double break at 4-2.
But Giorgi upped the ante with a series of pacy forehands to get herself out of that game, and levelled at 4-4 when Muguruza contributed a double fault of her own down break point. At the climax of the set, Giorgi rattled off a series of winners to break Muguruza again in the last game.
Former Wimbledon champion Muguruza took another 3-1 lead in the second set, but once again could not sustain her form. Her own double fault tally crept up to six as Giorgi hit back with a run of five straight games to seal victory.
Consecutive dead net cords enlivened the final game, with the first going Muguruza's way and bringing up a break-back point, only to be denied by a second in Giorgi's favour. Giorgi finished with 30 winners to 33 unforced errors, while Muguruza found only 10 winners to 26 unforced errors.
The 30-year-old Giorgi will next face lucky loser Viktoriya Tomova, who overcame qualifier Kirsten Flipkens 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 in exactly 2 hours of play.
Tomova had lost to Flipkens 4-6, 6-2, 7-6(4) in the final round of qualifying, but got into the draw following the withdrawal of No 2 seed Ons Jabeur. The No.128-ranked Bulgarian came from a set and a breakdown to exact revenge and reach her first WTA 500 quarterfinal.
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