In her opening match late on Thursday evening, the Latvian defeated the Dane Clara Tauson 3:6.6:4.7:6(7) after 2:23 hours. Defending champion Anastasia Potapova from Russia beat the Italian Elisabetta Cocciaretto 2:6,7:6(9),7:5 in a thriller, Croatia’s Donna Vekic defeated the Melbourne semi-finalist Dajana Jastremska 6:1,6:1.
False start for Ostapenko
Ostapenko made a classic false start against the 21-year-old Tauson in the $922,573 “Upper Austria Ladies”. The twelfth place in the world rankings quickly found herself 0-4 behind and had to give up the first set after half an hour. In the second round too, Baltin initially had little success; with the score at 1:4 she already looked like the loser before Tauson’s thread broke. Ostapenko made five plays in a row and equalized.
In the deciding set, Tauson was already serving for the win at 5:3, but Ostapenko fended off a match point and fought his way back into the game with a break. In the tiebreak, the favorite turned her third match point into triumph after midnight. The next opponent is now the British qualifier Jodie Burrage.
“Glad I had my emotions under control”
Potapowa also had a bad start to the game against the world number 60 in Linz and gave up her serve twice in the first set. Cocciaretto, on the other hand, served well and quickly won the first round. In the second set, the Italian immediately managed a break again, while the Russian became increasingly emotional and repeatedly struggled with close balls. Finally Potapova managed the rebreak to make it 4:4. In the tiebreak she fended off two match points and won it 11:9.
Image: (APA/BARBARA GINDL)
The decision set also remained narrow. The favorite took her opponent’s serve in the ninth game to make it 5:4 and then missed three match points. This took revenge immediately, Cocciaretto equalized. But Potapova countered and scored her fourth match point after almost three hours. “It was an incredible match, I have a lot of respect for Elisabetta. I’m really happy to be through and that I had my emotions under control in the end to win,” explained Potapova, who now faces her compatriot Yekaterina Alexandrova , number two in the tournament, continues.
More about the Upper Austria Ladies:
Barbara Schett-Eagle: “Hardly anyone wants to torture themselves anymore”
At the start of the day, Belgian Elise Mertens, seeded number four, made it into the quarter-finals at the Linz Design Center. The world number 26. had little trouble against Lucia Bronzetti from Italy and won 6:1,6:3 after just 78 minutes. There were more problems for the French Clara Burel against the Czech Katerina Siniakova, the French woman used her first match point after almost two and a half hours to win 6:3.5:7.6:4.
Meanwhile, Jastremska was unable to continue her successful Australian Open run in Linz. The Ukrainian was in a losing battle against Vekic; the 23-year-old only managed to get her service through twice. Her Croatian opponent held her own serve and was able to celebrate after just 66 minutes. Vekic now faces Burel, Mertens meets the Russian Anastasia Pavlyutschenkowa.
