Iga Swiatek rolls along into quarterfinals at Doha

[February 15, 2024]  World No. 1 Iga Swiatek recorded a 6-1, 6-4 victory over 14th-seeded Ekaterina Alexandrova on Wednesday to advance to the quarterfinals of the Qatar TotalEnergies Open in Doha.
 
A two-time defending champion, Swiatek won her 10th straight match at the tournament after firing five aces and taking advantage of three double faults. She saved all eight of her break points.  

The 22-year-old native of Poland dispatched Russia's Alexandrova in 91 minutes. She will face former World No. 1 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus after Azarenka rolled to a 6-0, 6-3 victory over eighth-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia.

Azarenka committed just 20 unforced errors while Ostapenko was hurt by a whopping 49.

A pair of upsets occurred on Wednesday as unseeded Canadian Leylah Fernandez upended fifth-seeded Qinwen Zheng of China and Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova outlasted sixth-seeded Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic. Fernandez and Pavlyuchenkova each posted a 7-5, 6-3 victory.

Fernandez won 70.5 percent of her first serve points to defeat Zheng in 92 minutes and move into the quarterfinals.

"I'm extremely pumped up, I'm super happy with my level," Fernandez said. "There's still a lot of work to do, but so far so good, so we're just going to keep going."

Fernandez will face third-seeded Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, who notched a 6-1, 6-7 (6), 6-4 win over 16th-seeded Emma Navarro.

"We played a long time ago," Rybakina said of Navarro. "We both were young. She improved a lot. It was such a difficult match. I had some opportunities in the second set, but she played really well. For me physically it was a bit more difficult. It's been tough. I'm really happy I managed to win in the end."

Pavlyuchenkova overcame six aces by Vondrousova to advance to meet unseeded American Danielle Collins, who secured a 6-4, 6-3 win over Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic. Collins is 3-0 all-time against Pavlyuchenkova.

Collins had five aces and saved 9 of 14 break points.

Also on Wednesday, Japan's Naomi Osaka advanced via walkover after Lesia Tsurenko of the Ukraine withdrew due to an elbow injury.

Osaka's quarterfinal foe will be former World No. 1 Karolina Pliskova, who rallied for a 3-6, 7-5, 6-1 win over fellow Czech Linda Noskova. Pliskova had 12 aces.

--Field Level Media

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