German Open: Ons Jabeur, Belinda Bencic reach quarters

BERLIN: Tunisia's Ons Jabeur and Switzerland's Belinda Bencic reached the quarterfinals of the German Open after winning their respective matches, here on Thursday.

No 1 seed Jabeur beat qualifier Alycia Parks 6-2, 7-6 (8), which put her into her eighth quarterfinal of 2022, all at WTA 500 level or above. She will next face Aliaksandra Sasnovich as she bids to reach a fourth semifinal of the season.

The 21-year-old Parks acquitted herself well in her first career meeting with a player ranked inside the Top 20. She departed Berlin having scored her first WTA 500 main draw victory, and first Top 50 win, over Zheng Qinwen in the first round.

It was the World No 169 Parks who set much of the match's tempo. She struck more winners than Jabeur, 18 to 13, but significantly more unforced errors as well, 31 to 17. Many of the latter came during the first set-and-a-half. Ons Jabeur gained a 6-2, 3-1 lead courtesy solid serving and a strategy of getting Parks on the run, invariably drawing mistakes from the lower-ranked player.

But Jabeur was nearly caught out when Parks raised her game - and then received a stroke of luck in the form of a dead net cord that enabled her to break back for 3-3. The Tunisian found herself battling her own inconsistency as she sought to escape a contest that had suddenly got a lot tighter.

Jabeur did manage to find some trademark magic at key points: a flicked backhand slice passing shot to save breakpoint serving at 3-4, and a terrific defensive point to move up 5-3 in the tiebreak.

Closing the match out was another struggle, though. Jabeur squandered a triple match point from 6-3, then needed to find some of her best forehands of the day to save a set point at 6-7. But on her fifth match point, the World No.4 was finally able to advance thanks to an unreturned serve.

In another game, Belinda Bencic beat Anna Kalinskaya 6-4, 1-6, 6-1 to reach her sixth quarterfinal of 2022. IANS

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