London: The No.13 seed and former French Open winner Jelena Ostapenko raced past Yulia Putintseva to reach her third quarterfinal at Wimbledon, the first since 2018, and was joined in the last-eight stage by No.4 seed Elena Rybakina and No.21 seed Elina Svitolina, who set up a mouth-watering meeting at the grass-court major on Monday.
Ostapenko raced past Putintseva 6-2, 6-3 in 68 minutes while Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon champion, moved into the quarterfinals after an ailing No.17 seed Anna Kalinskaya retired from their Centre Court match due to a right wrist injury. Rybakina led 6-3, 3-0 when Kalinskaya stopped play after 53 minutes. Svitolina, a Wimbledon semifinalist last year, joined Rybakina in the last eight with a 6-2, 6-1 victory over 42nd-ranked Wang Xinyu in just 55 minutes.
Ostapenko was in the spotlight as she defeated giant-killer Putintseva.
In four matches so far this fortnight, the Latvian has dropped just 15 games — the lowest number of any player to get to the last eight since Victoria Azarenka’s 14 in 2012 — and spent 4 hours and 5 minutes on the court. Her tally of 29 winners against Putintseva took her tournament total to 88 in 63 games played.
Ostapenko and Putintseva had come into this match, their fifth overall meeting, with a tied head-to-head at two wins apiece. Three of the previous four matches had gone the distance. Moreover, Putintseva had been on an eight-match winning streak that included her first grass-court title in Birmingham two weeks previously, and an upset of World No.1 Iga Swiatek in the previous round.
However, Ostapenko’s emphatic victory moved the former Roland Garros champion into the last eight of a major for the sixth time overall. She will bid for a third Grand Slam semifinal against either No.11 seed Danielle Collins or No.31 seed Barbora Krejcikova. Ostapenko is also the only player so far to reach both the singles and doubles last eight. On Sunday, No.9 seeds Ostapenko and Lyudmyla Kichenok defeated Tereza Mihalikova and Olivia Nicholls 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 to reach the quarterfinals.
Krejcikova can potentially join her, if she defeats Collins and also wins her doubles third-round contest, partnering Laura Siegemund, over Chan Hao-Ching and Veronika Kudermetova.
Rybakina and Svitolina have split their four previous meetings. Their last meeting came at this year’s Roland Garros, which Rybakina won in straight sets. Rybakina also won their only prior grass-court match, at 2021 Eastbourne.
Kazakhstan’s Rybakina is the highest-ranked player remaining in the draw, and the only player left in the field who has previously won the Wimbledon title.
Rybakina continues to increase her strong win-loss record at the grass-court major, where she is 18-2 lifetime and has made the quarterfinals for the last three years. After defeating Ons Jabeur in the 2022 final, she fell to Jabeur in last year’s quarterfinals.
Monday’s victory pushes Rybakina’s main-draw winning percentage at Wimbledon to 90 percent. She is the third player in the Open Era to register a career win rate of 90 percent in the Wimbledon ladies’ singles draw, joining Ann Jones and Stefanie Graf.
Ukraine’s Svitolina eased through her fourth-round match on No.2 Court, slamming 21 winners (including eight aces) to just 10 unforced errors. Svitolina won 80 percent of her first-service points and saved all three of the break points she faced against China’s Wang.
Svitolina is in her third career Wimbledon quarterfinal. She reached the semifinals in 2019, then returned to the final four last year after her maternity leave. Svitolina has won 96 Grand Slam matches in her career, ninth-most among active players.
After the win, Svitolina spoke of the challenge of taking the court after waking up to the news that a children’s hospital in Kyiv had been hit by a Russian missile strike.
–IANS
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