Alongside the final settlements of Wimbledon Championships, there is also some other action in WTA this week, as two WTA 125 challengers are being played in the second week of London's Grand Slam.
Contrexeville in France hosts an really interesting field of players in the challenger played on clay surface, as 6 players from the main draw are listed in top 100 of the WTA rankings. The stake is quite high this week, as the next Monday's ranking updated with the points from Wimbledon and both this week's WTA 125 events, will emerge the field of direct participants of main draw in US Open, which starts at the end of August.
Two rounds of the Grand Est Open 88 are already finished, which had set up a great field of quarterfinals to be played on Friday. 5 out of 8 seeds are still in contention, but the top seed is not included into this group, as Tatjana Maria got eliminated in her first round match against Tereza Martincova. The match between the German and the Czech, who needed to climb to the main draw out of qualies, was definitely the headline of the opening round. Martincova won 6-3 7-6(2), while coming back from being a break down in second set. Maria had two setpoints during own service game, but did not manage to close the second set and dropped out of the tournament as early as in the first round. The Czech has also prevailed in second round's match against the world's number 215 - Hailey Baptiste, as she came back from being a set down and advanced into quarters with a score 4-6 6-3 6-2. Anna Lena Friedsam will be the opponent of Martincova in the quarters. The 5th seed won both her matches in straight sets.
Sara Errani and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova set up the most exciting match-up of the QFs. The experienced Italian seeded with #3 has not dropped any single set so far this week, while the recent quarterfinalist of Roland Garros had to fight for staying in the tournament in an intense battle against wild-card receiver, Amandine Hesse. The French was leading with a break in third set, but the Russian managed to force the decisive tiebreak, where she converted her 4th matchpoint to win the match by 6-3 1-6 7-6(7). Second round against Rosa Vicens Mas was not much easier, as the Spaniard was leading in both sets, but Pavlyuchenkova prevailed in straights, winning 6-4 7-6(4).
Cristina Bucsa is the highest ranked player to reach out the quarters, as the Spaniard seeded with #2 has eliminated Tamara Korpatsch in first round's three-setter by 1-6 6-4 6-3 and gave just no chance for the local player Tessah Andrianjafitrimo, achieving the double bagel victory after just 53 minutes of play. Bucsa plays against another French and the last home crowd's favorite standing in the draw. Fiona Ferro got awarded with a wild card into main draw and made a really good use of it, advancing into quarters after an exciting battle against fellowcountry, 6th seed Diane Parry. The current world's number 96 was leading in third set of the match against Ferro, being 3-0 up at one point and serving for the match with a score 5-3. Parry had two setpoints within own serve, but Ferro managed to win 4 points from being *40-15 down and won all the following games to grab the win with a score 3-6 6-2 7-5.
Arantxa Rus and Eva Lys are the another QF pairing after both the players prevailed in three-setters against challenging opponents in second round. The Dutch seeded with #4 overcame Erika Andreeva, winning by 3-6 6-2 6-4 against the Russian. Lys has also came back from being a set down, as she eliminated the 7th seed Clara Burel.
