WTA Big 4 Swiatek, Sabalenka, Gauff, Rybakina In Stuttgart QF

The women’s Big 4 are all in the Stuttgart quarterfinals on Friday. Two-time defending champion Iga Swiatek leads the way after a win over Elise Mertens 6-3, 6-4.

“There is always pressure behind me somewhere,” said Swiatek who has won the last two years and is 9-0 at the event. “You can’t avoid that on this level and when you’re a favorite in every match. So I’m not really thinking about that.

“It’s tricky to win three times. I remember how I felt in Doha at the beginning of the tournament. Things were kind of following me, and it was hard to let it go.”

Swiatek will now take on fellow US Open winner Emma Raducanu who reached her first tour quarterfinal after ousting Linda Noskova 6-0, 7-5.

“Well, she seems like she’s getting her game back together, so it’s great to see that, because for sure she has potential,” Swiatek said to the WTA. “It’s not going to be easy. She knows how to spin the ball and how to move on clay, as well.”

Raducanu has won four straight matches for the first time since her US Open run.

“I think the fitter I get and the more clean my technique gets, the more I’m able to kind of stay in the longer points and generate from further back,” Raducanu said. “Whereas I feel maybe before I was having to hug the baseline, play a hard court game on clay as well. It works sometimes, but it doesn’t always work.

“I feel like I’m developing more versatility in the way I play. I can adjust. I can adapt. That’s a big strength, because certain things, you get into a match and they don’t work from the initial plan, so you have to change something. You can completely switch the dynamics of a match sometimes.”

Wimbledon winner Marketa Vondrousova advanced easing past Anastasia Potapova 7-6(5), 6-1. Vondrousova will now meet Aryna Sabalenka tomorrow.

Another Wimbledon champ, Elena Rybakina, needed three to get by Veronika Kudermetova 7-6(3), 1-6, 6-4.

“I always believed that I can play good on clay. My actually first win on the WTA was on clay,” Rybakina said of her clay success.

“It’s just the season is quite short, and of course me, for example, I need a bit more time to get used, to adapt, to play some matches.

“But overall I think that I can play well on all the surfaces. Last year it was great tournament in Rome, and then French Open, I actually feel also well there. I like the courts. It’s just I was unlucky with sickness, so I think I’m doing pretty well for now.”

Marta Kostyuk and Jasmine Paolini were also winners.

Kostyuk will now face Coco Gauff on Friday while Paolini meets Rybakina.

FRIDAY STUTTGART SCHEDULE
Centre Court – 12:30pm
4 Elena Rybakina v Jasmine Paolini
6 Marketa Vondrousova v 2 Aryna Sabalenka

7pm
1 Iga Swiatek v Emma Raducanu
Marta Kostyuk v 3 Coco Gauff

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