The seeds blow out in second round
The line up of quarterfinals of WTA 250 Rothesay Open in Nottingham is quite unusual, are no one of 8 seeded players managed to move past the second round this week. Moreover, 5 of 6 seeds who won their opening matches, got eliminated after losing in straight sets during the second round, which got played between Wednesday and Thursday.
Maria Sakkari approached Nottingham with the hopes to enlarge her quite modest shelf of the WTA level trophies, being a top seed in the first of British grass season tournaments. Sakkari got stopped on second hurdle, facing a severe defeat to Alize Cornet. The experienced French has eliminated the tournament's top seed with a score 6-1 6-4 after just 88 minutes of play. Cornet proves her good momentum on grass at this stage of career, extending her successful series from 2022. Cornet approached the 4th round of Wimbledon Championships this year with stopping Iga Swiatek from her series of 37 wins in a row, and advanced into semis in WTA 250 Bad Homburg.
Elizabeth Mandlik will be Cornet's opponent in the quarters after defeating Camila Giorgi with a score 7-5 5-7 6-3. Giorgi was the only one seed to win a single set in second round, as she fought a close match against the American who performed quite a big upset here, being rated as a pre-match underdog with an odd 3.82, the highest one in all the round of 16 matches.
Perfect week for the Brits
Regardless of further results in the decisive round during the weekend, the tournament in Nottingham will surely be recognized as a big success of the home representatives, as four UK players approached the quarterfinals after winning all their second round matches in straight sets.
Katie Boulter was the only one Brit, who was rated as a favorite ahead of her match in this round. Boulter was facing Daria Snigur, who made a huge upset over Beatriz Haddad Maia in the opening round. The new UK number one was rated with an odd 1.44 and done well as a favorite, winning 7-5 6-3. It was not a cakewalk though, as Boulter was down break after the start in both sets, but fought to tip the scales on her favour. The opening set was a specially intense battle as it took 76 minutes, but the 6th game of it was an absolute highlight. Snigur managed to hold her serve for the score 4-2 after 14 (!) deuces, defending 7 breakpoints in this game. As it occured later, it was not enough for the Ukrainian to take the opening set despite being up with a score and winning such an electric game.
Harriet Dart will play against Boulter in all-British quarterfinal after defeating the 5th seed Anhelina Kalinina with a score 6-0 7-5. Dart has scored a perfect start and won the opening set with a bagel after just 23 minutes. The second one was much more competitive, as the Ukrainian moved into the lead after earning the early break, but Dart found her dominant game again to take the win in straight sets.
Heather Watson plays against Viktorija Golubic on Friday after both performed the upsets on higher rated opponents in second round. The Brit has defeated last year's Wimbledon quarterfinalist Tatjana Maria with a score 6-4 6-4. The Swiss eliminated 4th seed Donna Vekic in even more dominative style. Current world's number 150 defeated the 130 places higher ranked Croatian 6-4 6-1 after just 71 minutes of play.
Jodie Burrage has denied the all-Polish quarterfinal after defeating the tournament's 3rd seed Magda Linette. The Pole has started well by moving into 4-1 lead, but Burrage made up a single break gap and took the first set after winning 6 out of 7 following games. The Brit has followed the blow in second set and started with an early break, but this time Linette tried to change the fates of the set. Burrage regained her momentum after Linette's comeback into score 3-3 and won the last 3 games of this match.
Frech lives the momentum
Magdalena Frech will be another Pole to play against Burrage in the quarters. Frech lives a great time in recent weeks. The Pole has bounced back after miserable start of the season with a series of unsuccessful qualifying campaigns into several WTA tournaments in a row. The season of Frech has kick-started from March and after a few good show ups on clay, the Pole has moved up into her career's best 77th place in WTA rankings. The start of grass campaign is also successful for Frech, as she moved into her second quarterfinal of the season after defeating Lin Zhu 6-2 6-4.
