Dubai: Top seed Kristina Mladenovic will be involved in the only battle of seeds as a couple of qualifiers joined them into the quarter-finals of the Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge, on Wednesday.
Mladenovic took an hour and 45 minutes in avenging last season’s loss to Swiss opponent Stefanie Voegele, while promising to get even better.
“It’s like deja vu one year later. I am feeling better with each round and I will do even better in the quarter-final,” Mladenvoic told Gulf News as he prepared to face fifth seed Sara Sorribes Tormo — a winner over Mariam Bolkvadze of Georgia.
“It’s not going to get any easy as we had some harsh conditions to put up with as well today. Now I will need to recover enough and continue doing what I have been doing during practice so that I can get even better.”
Also landing up a quarter-final meeting were a couple of qualifiers led by Poland’s Magdalena Frech and Ukrainian teenager Daria Snigur, while Belgium’s Greet Minnen packed off former doubles champion and seventh seed Vitalia Diatchenko to set up a meeting with Barbara Haas of Austria — a winner against Russian, Varvara Gracheva.
Romanian Ana Bogdan accounted for second seed Viktoria Kuzmova, sixth seed Tatjana Maria of Germany went down in straight sets to Poland’s Katarzyna Kawa.
Results:
Kristina Mladenovic bt Stefanie Voegele 6-3, 6-4; Anna-Lena Friedsam bt Magdalena Frech 2-6, 6-3, 6-0; Daria Snigur bt Anastasia Potapova 6-2, 6-3; Greet Minnen bt Vitalia Diatchenko 6-3, 6-1; Barbara Haas bt Varvara Gracheva 7-6, 6-2; Katarzyna Kawa bt Maria Tatjana 6-2, 6-3; Ana Bogdan bt Viktoria Kuzmova 6-1, 6-4; Sara Sorribes Tormo bt Mariam Bolkvadze 6-4, 3-0 (Retd.).
