Sorana Cirstea (Romania) qualified for the semi-finals of the WTA 1000 Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships after remarkable comeback and defeating the 7th-seeded Marketa Vondrousova (Czech Republic) by 2-1 (2:6, 7:6, 6:2) in a match that lasted 2:43 hours.
The match started perfectly for the Wimbledon 2023 champion Czech tennis player, who won easily the first set after making two breaks, although needed to save seven breakpoints.
Marketa Vondrousova even took a serious lead of 4:0 in the second set after breaking twice her opponent and served for the match at 5:1. Sorana Cirstea saved total of 6 breakpoints to win the next four games and equalize to 5:5. Thus, the set entered into a tiebreak, which Romanian tennis player won by 7-1.
The Czech tennis player went into a serious crisis after missing to win the match and the third set was under the dominance of Sorana Cirstea, who achieved a break already in the first game and another one in the seventh game to close it at 6:2.
Thus, in the semi-finals Sorana Cirstea will face Jasmine Paolini (Italy), who qualified after walkover of the fourth-seeded Elena Rybakina (Kazakhstan).
The world’s number one and top-seeded Iga Swiatek (Poland) also qualified for the semis of the Masters’ tournament after defeating Qinwen Zheng (China) by 2-0 (6:3, 6:2) and will face Anna Kalinskaya (Russia), who eliminated the third-seeded Cori Coco Gauff (USA) by 2-1 (2:6, 6:4, 6:2).
