The battle of Americans

Jessica Pegula and Cori Gauff set up an absolute hit clash of the quarterfinals in Eastbourne. Top two American players and friends who share the court during doubles competitions for quite a long time, will play against each other in the only one QF match-up between the seeds and two world's top 10 players at the same time.

The road to this match-up was quite different for both. Cori Gauff has defeated home crowd's favorite Jodie Burrage with a crushing score 6-1 6-1. Pegula was playing against Camila Osorio and despite winning the opening set 6-2 as expected, the world's number 4 suffered a big slump in second set, losing 5 games in a row and whole the set 1-6. The top ranked US player regrouped in second set, as she not allowed her opponent to create any single breakpoint and moved through with a score 6-2 1-6 6-3. The match between Pegula and Gauff can be expected to be a tight battle, but the younger in this pairing seems to be in a really good form here in Eastbourne. Gauff has faced just one single breakpoint in two matches, not losing any service game and winning comfortably in all the sets played so far.

Painful ending for Haddad Maia

Beatriz Haddad Maia has celebrated a big rise during last year's grass season, as the Brazilian appeared in the field of top WTA players after winning 2 tournaments in a row and achieving semifinals in Eastbourne in 2022. This year's grass season is a different story, as Haddad Maia has won just one match in this week's first round and pulled out from the play during second round's meeting against Petra Martic. The Slovenian was playing really well and consistently, which resulted with winning in the opening set 6-4. Both players were leveled on serve in second set, but Haddad Maia was clearly struggling with a pain. The Brazilian withdrew after 5 games due to the right leg injury.

Martic will face Madison Keys in the quarterfinals. Keys is the third of Americans to reach this stage, playing well in her first grass tournament this season. The world's number 25 has defeated Tereza Martincova and Xiyu Wang on the road, both in straight sets.

Giorgi upsets Jabeur

Camila Giorgi performed the biggest upset in this round, defeating Ons Jabeur in straight sets 6-3 6-2. The Italian was rated with an odd 3.19 ahead of the match against last year's Wimbledon runner up. The match was quite an erratic performacnce from both players, as it started with 6 consecutive breaks. Giorgi managed to find some groove in her serve, winning the opening set 6-3, as Jabeur lost all her service games there. The momentum was still on the side of the Italian in second set, as she dominated the play and did not allow the world's number 6 to create any single breakpoint till the end. It's a really miserable grass campaign for Jabeur so far, as she won just one match in two appearances before the Wimbledon.

Giorgi plays against Jelena Ostapenko in the quarters. The champion of last week's WTA 250 Rothesay Open in Birmingham scored a routine victory against home player Harriet Dart, winning by 6-3 6-4.

Costly umpire's mistake

The match between Daria Kasatkina and Karolina Pliskova has ended up under the sign of a huge controversy. It was a tight battle with two sets shared between both players and 3-3 score in the decider, when Pliskova got broken after a clearly mistake of the chair umpire. Kasatkina converted a breakpoint despite the ball hitting the ground clearly behind the baseline, which was not called neither by the head nor by any of the line umpires. Pliskova was really upset with this fact and did not manage to come back into contention, which ended up with a score 3-6 6-3 6-3 on Kasatkina's favour. Caroline Garcia will be Kasatkina's opponent in the quarters. The highest seed of the tournament advanced into QF after two straight set wins over Madison Brengle and Ana Bogdan.