Second seed Belinda Bencic kicked off her Abu Dhabi Open run on Wednesday with a 6-4, 7-5 win over Marta Kostyuk in the second round. The Swiss needed an hour and 35 minutes to claim victory. The Ukrainian had seven aces in the match, but she couldn’t do better against her second-seeded opponent.
Both players won 65% of their first serve points, but Bencic won the match thanks to her winning more second serve points. The winner of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games won 84% of the points with her second serve and 60% of the points with the return of her opponent’s second serve.
Bencic lost serve twice during the match, but also broke Kostyuk on four out of six occasions. Both breaks came in the second set. After the win, Bencic said: “I expected it to be a tough match against Marta.
I’m happy with how everything has gone, maybe I can improve some things, but it’s always nice to get first”. Looking to reach the semifinals now, Bencic will play Shelby Rogers. The American advanced to the quarterfinals after her opponent, seventh seed Anett Kontaveit, withdrew in their second-round match on Wednesday in the decider.
At that point, after one hour and 43 minutes of play, Rogers led the Estonian 4-6, 6-3, 4-1.
Abu Dhabi Open: Qinwen Zheng outplays Jelena Ostapenko
Qinwen Zheng scored an upset over fifth seed Jelena Ostapenko in their Round of 16 clash.
The Chinese won 7-6(10), 6-1 in one hour and 58 minutes. The second set was just as one-sided and backwards as the first was. In the first set tie-break, Ostapenko had three set points but was unable to capitalize on any. Zheng also wasted three set points before clinching the set in her fourth.
In the second set, Zheng did not face any break points but broke the Latvian twice for a relatively easy victory in the end. Zheng will now play top seed Daria Kasatkina or Jil Teichmann. Fourth-seeded Veronika Kudermetova also clinched a spot in the Abu Dhabi Open quarterfinals with a 6-1, 7-5 win over Elise Mertens. Kudermetova’s next opponent could be Barbora Krejcikova or eighth seed Liudmila Samsonova.
