Italian qualifier Sara Errani battled her way to a grueling 3-6, 7-5, 7-5 victory over former World No.1 Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark in the opening round of the Mutua Madrid Open on Wednesday.
In the clash between former Top 5 players, Errani took 2 hours and 48 minutes to fight back from a set down and overcome Wozniacki, who reached the Madrid final in its inaugural edition as a WTA 1000 event in 2009.
Next up: Errani, a Madrid semifinalist in 2013, advances into the second round, where she will face No.11 seed Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil.
Errani leads Haddad Maia 3-1 in their head-to-head, with one of the Italian’s wins coming in Madrid qualies in 2018. However, that was their most recent meeting, which was well before Haddad Maia’s surge into the Top 20.
Italian renaissance: Errani, the 2012 Roland Garros runner-up, is hanging onto a Top 100 spot at exactly World No.100. However, the Italian has pulled off a strong clay-court stretch already this spring.
An EPIC performance! 🤯@SaraErrani battles past Wozniacki in a three set thriller 3-6, 7-5, 7-5. #MMOPEN pic.twitter.com/IzdpPkbdvP
— wta (@WTA) April 24, 2024
In Bogota at the start of this month, Errani moved into her first WTA-level semifinal since 2017, picking up three wins before losing to eventual champion Camila Osorio.
Errani also qualified for main draws last week in Stuttgart and this week in Madrid, and she has now won eight of her 10 clay-court matches at all levels this year.
Red (clay) alert: Still in the midst of her comeback from a three-year maternity leave, Wozniacki came close to earning her first win on red clay in nearly six years.
The Dane’s last match-win on red clay came over Pauline Parmentier in the third round of 2018 Roland Garros. Since then, Wozniacki has won green-clay matches in Charleston in 2019 as well as this year, but she has gone 0-4 in her last four red-clay matches.
More to come…