Top 10 players Ons Jabeur, Jelena Ostapenko and Maria Sakkari all moved into the Mutua Madrid Open Round of 16 with third-round victories under the roof on a drizzly Saturday.
No.8 seed Jabeur had the toughest test of the trio. The Tunisian star fought back from 4-2 down in the third set before overcoming No.32 seed Leylah Fernandez of Canada 7-5, 2-6, 6-4 in 2 hours and 24 minutes. This is the first event this year where Jabeur has won back-to-back matches.
Jabeur, the 2022 Madrid champion, also pulled off a comeback in the first set, battling from a 3-0 deficit to steal the one-set lead. But Fernandez dominated the second set, in which Jabeur hit only one winner.
In the third set, Fernandez saved seven of the eight break points she faced during her run to the 4-2 lead. However, powerful returning by Jabeur gave her a love break in the following game, putting the Tunisian back on serve.
That was the turning point, as Jabeur grinded to one more service break to lead 5-4 and serve for the match. Jabeur's 35th winner of the day, this one off the forehand side, converted her first match point. Jabeur is now 3-0 against Fernandez, with all three wins going three sets.
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Jabeur's win set up a Top 10 showdown in the Round of 16, where she will meet No.9 seed Ostapenko. Latvia's Ostapenko moved past Argentine qualifier Maria Lourdes Carle 6-3, 6-3 in 1 hour and 29 minutes on Saturday.
Ostapenko, the 2017 Roland Garros champion, has posted her career-best Madrid showing this week. The Latvian had never advanced beyond the Round of 32 in her six previous appearances in the Spanish capital.
World No.82 Carle had notched her first Top 20 win in the previous round over Veronika Kudermetova, and the Argentine was aiming for an even bigger victory on Saturday, in her first career meeting with a Top 10 player.
The opening strains of the match were a true tussle, with the first six games going against serve. But Ostapenko eventually took charge in the first set, where she won all six of Carle's second-service points.
Ostapenko fell behind an early break in the second set, but that was a momentary blip as the World No.10 reeled off six of the next seven games to clinch her 19th match-win of the year.
No.5 seed Sakkari of Greece also booked her Round of 16 spot on Saturday, ending the seven-match winning streak of American Sloane Stephens with a 6-1, 6-3 victory.
In a clash between former Madrid semifinalists (Sakkari last year and Stephens in 2019), Sakkari needed just 63 minutes to ease past World No.33 Stephens. It is Sakkari's 18th win in her last 19 matches against players ranked outside the Top 30.
With the win, Sakkari improved to 2-0 against 2017 US Open champion Stephens. Sakkari won their previous meeting on the hard courts of Toronto in 2022.
In Saturday's first set, Sakkari was pristine, hitting only three unforced errors –- her lowest total of unforced errors in an opening set this year. Sakkari broke Stephens in the first game of the second set as well to take a commanding lead.
Former World No.3 Stephens fought back on serve in the next game, as last week's Rouen champion attempted to keep her winning streak active. But Sakkari reclaimed her break lead at 4-3 after forcing an error long, and the Greek cruised home from there.
