On a day of action in the second round full of big names at Qatar Total Open, former champions Victoria Azarenka and Petra Kvitova led the attack into the quarterfinals with straight set winners. Azarenka’s No.8 seed came through 6-4, 6-2 over referee Laura Siegemund, before Kvitova’s No.4 seed kick Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-1, 6-3.
The trench between Azarenka and Siegemund was of a high quality in which Belarus slowly but surely caught hold of the myriad of shots thrown at it by its opponent.
Dropshots, return winners and several pass-down passes all added to Siegemund’s visual reel. Over the course of the match, the German would beat 25 winners compared to 15. Azarenka. But from 1-3 down in the first set, Azarenka would display far more consistency, keeping her non-critical error counting down to 15 compared to Siegemund’s 24.
The opening set depended on a seventh big game in which 12 deuces. Siegemund, having regained his opening starting lead back to 3-3, could not take eight game-point chances to move on again. Instead, quarterback quarterback Roland Garros has gone against the fourth break point, allowing Azarenka to maintain his move.
Azarenka, a champion in Doha in 2012 and 2013, never let him down again. Siegemund’s famous fighting features were still visible when her back was to the wall. Four hours before a set or game, she came up with a clear winner, and in the second set she threatened a last-minute rebound.
But Siegemund had gone down badly at the start of the second set to fall behind 0-5, and the deficit was too great to make up for. Azarenka failed to win on her first try, but made no mistake the second time and won with an authoritative catch.
The U.S. Open final was combined in the last eight by the 2018 Doha champion Kvitova, who was in scorching form in the 13th edition of a conflict dating back to 2008.
Eight of Kvitova’s previous incidents with Pavlyuchenkova had gone a long way, but there was little risk for that today. The Czech shot at 31 winners, kept her non-emergency error number to 19 and posted a service percentage of 76%. On three of the four resting points she faced, she would spread herself out with a clutch service.
The exception was at the start of the second set, but Pavlyuchenkova canceled out her win as soon as she got it. Leading 3-1, the Russian reversed the break with a pair of double fractures, and Kvitova resumed normal service to race through the final five games of the game.
Two Doha runners-up saw their campaigns come to an end, however. Anett Kontaveit knocked out 2014 finisher Angelique Kerber 6-1, 6-4, giving up a one-time service in a performance that was dominant. The Estonian now leads her head-to-head against Kerber 4-1.
Meanwhile, the rich form of Jessica Pegula’s Australian quarter-final continued with a 6-2, 7-5 win over 2016 runner Jelena Ostapenko. In a contest of building an aggressive baseline football punctuated with occasional dropshot, the American credentials were more consistent and better reliant on her second service.
The 56% Ostapenko combination that did not serve first while winning just 36% of the points behind her second service was never going to work out well for her . Latvia’s wild card hit an impressive purple patch in the second set, threatening to come back when it rebounded 12 points in a row from 2-4 down – but it was too short. Ostapenko moved into an error just as abruptly, and Pegula took 12 of the last 14 points to reach her second quarter of the season.