No.5 seed Maria Sakkari of Greece booked a spot in the Mutua Madrid Open Round of 16 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.
Under a closed roof in rainy Madrid, 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.
No.9 seed Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia also claimed a spot in the Round of 16, moving 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.
More to come…