Quick and easy: Which interesting players were on show in Madrid on Saturday?

On Friday, the world number one advanced to the next stage of the WTA event in Madrid. On Saturday, the number two tried to emulate her. The programme also included a 16th birthday celebration on this day!

World No. 2 match

As in the men’s part of the event in Spain, the women’s side also featured some of the big favourites. However, rain disrupted the start of Saturday’s programme in Madrid. While most of the tennis players had to wait for their match, world number two Aryna Sabalenka was already fighting her battle against Colombia’s Osorio under a cloudy roof.

She has never finished earlier than the quarter-finals at any event this year and she certainly has no plans to do so in the Spanish capital. In Saturday’s duel, the Belarusian gained her opponent’s serve only to lose hers early. At the end of the set, she made another break, and it was the decisive one. Set Sabalenka.

If something works, why change it? The second set developed in similar waves and Sabalenka continued through the tournament after winning 6::4, 7::5.

The match on her 16th birthday and other matches

Sabalenka also knows her opponent for the eighth round. That will be the young Mirra Andreeva. The Russian will play her match on Saturday on her 16th birthday.

And the rising Russian star dominated her match against Poland’s Linette in start-to-finish fashion. She won it handily 6: 2, 6: 3 and has yet to lose a set in her WTA Masters debut.

After Saturday, another young player definitely has the opposite feeling. Nineteen-year-old American Cori Gauff says goodbye after her loss to Bados. The sixth-ranked player was no match for her Spanish opponent and lost 3::6, 0::6.

Apart from the sixth-ranked player, the fifth-ranked player in the world is also bidding farewell to the tournament in Madrid. Caroline Garcia surprisingly lost to Egypt’s Sherif. This is the first time she has achieved such a success at the WTA 1000.

The honour of the top-seeded tennis players was saved by Sakkari of Greece. On Saturday, the tournament’s number nine got past the home team’s Masarova in the only three-set battle in the women’s section of the tournament. She defeated the Slovak-born tennis player 3::6, 6::3, 6::3 and will face the aforementioned Bados in the quarter-final clash.

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