The WTA 1000 tournament in Cincinnati continues with the bottom half of the Round of 16 draw taking center stage on Thursday. While the upper half delivered star power with Swiatek, Sabalenka, and Rybakina on Wednesday, today's matches feature intriguing storylines including defending US Open champion Coco Gauff facing marathon woman Lucia Bronzetti, a guaranteed underdog quarterfinalist in the Seidel-Gracheva clash, Jasmine Paolini playing against resurgent Barbora Krejcikova, and a crucial battle between Magda Linette and Veronika Kudermetova with US Open seeding implications on the line.
Gauff vs. Bronzetti
Coco Gauff has had quite some time to regroup after a disappointing performance in the latest WTA 1000 event in Montreal, as she played just one match before today's Round of 16 match-up against Lucia Bronzetti. Gauff kicked off her Cincy campaign with a 6-3 6-2 win against Xin Yu Wang, in a match which was quite erratic from the start, similar to the matches played by Gauff in Canada. The American raised her level and consistency from the middle of the opening set, getting the job done with a routine victory after just 70 minutes of play. Her next match against Dayana Yastremska did not take place due to the Ukrainian's withdrawal from the tournament caused by illness.
Lucia Bronzetti was on the opposite pole in terms of effort needed to advance into the Round of 16. The Italian played three matches going the full distance, starting with an exhausting thriller against Lin Zhu. This tie lasted 3 hours and 38 minutes, additionally hampered by the heat which has made life much more difficult for players this week in Cincinnati. The Chinese had a chance to win this thriller, having a match point in the decisive tiebreak, but Bronzetti came back from this, winning three points in a row to snatch the victory 6-7(6) 6-2 7-6(6). The decisive set itself lasted more than 1.5 hours.
Zhu was rated as a favorite there after her good run to the Round of 16 in Montreal. The odds priced Bronzetti at 2.4 before that match, while the bar just went up in the following rounds. The Italian faced world number 17 Daria Kasatkina, being rated with 3.08 odds before the match even though the Russian has not been playing the best season of her career. The gigantic effort from the first match did not prevent Bronzetti from pulling another upset, as she defeated Kasatkina 6-3 1-6 6-4. Jelena Ostapenko was her opponent in the third round, and despite being down after losing the first set 1-6, Bronzetti performed an amazing comeback, winning 1-6 6-3 6-4 with pre-match odds of 2.93. This was an excellent serving performance from the world number 61, who scored 10 aces against the favored Latvian.
It's difficult to realistically count on another upset after this much exertion from Bronzetti up to this point, however Gauff needs to prove she is on a good path to getting rid of her vulnerabilities and inconsistency before the quest for title defense at Flushing Meadows starting in just 1.5 weeks.
Paolini vs. Krejcikova
The Italian bounced back after the shocking loss to Aoi Ito in Montreal, moving to the Round of 16 after two straight-sets wins highlighted by three tiebreaks won against Maria Sakkari, who is slowly coming back to good form, and Ashlyn Krueger. The Italian will try to repeat her best run in Cincinnati from two years ago when she reached the quarterfinals. Barbora Krejcikova will try to stop her, as last year's Wimbledon champion is playing her best tournament in a year tormented by injuries. She scraped through three sets in all her matches, including the notable upset over Elina Svitolina and the recent victory against 17-year-old youngster Iva Jovic. This will be just the 5th match on hard courts for Krejcikova in 2025 and 14th in the whole season. Interestingly, 8 of them went the full distance with the Czech losing just one of those in the 3rd round of Wimbledon to Emma Navarro.
Seidel vs. Gracheva
Usually, the line-ups of the Round of 16 in WTA 1000 events contain at least one surprising match-up of players who would not be picked as a bet before the tournament, and the pairing of Ella Seidel and Varvara Gracheva is surely that one in Cincinnati. Not just underdogs but also vanquishers of American opponents in this tournament. Especially the German, who scraped through the qualifiers to reach the main draw and perform two huge upsets over Emma Navarro and McCartney Kessler. The win against world number 11 is surely the biggest one in Seidel's career so far, however the match against Kessler was big entertainment to watch. The German impressed with her calm attitude in the decisive moments, holding her serve with composure and keeping this mindset till the very end of a tiebreak where she was down 4-6, facing two match points. She was not just cautious but also very brave on those critical points, utilizing the errors of the favored American to win it all 6-4 2-6 7-6(6).
Gracheva has also appeared in the main draw after the necessity to play qualifiers. The former world number 39, currently out of the top 100 (but guaranteed to come back there next Monday after this run), shined with an excellent straight-sets win over Karolina Muchova in the last match (6-2 6-4), defeating three Americans before - Iva Jovic in qualifiers, Katie Volynets and Sofia Kenin in the main draw. Gracheva scored 15 aces against the former US Open champion, coming back from a set down in the third round. Whoever wins this tie in the Round of 16 will surely be the most surprising quarterfinalist of this event.
Linette vs. Kudermetova
Magda Linette performed one of the biggest upsets of this tournament, forcing the elimination of the highest seed so far, as she defeated Jessica Pegula 7-6(5) 3-6 6-3 in a match which lasted two days due to inclement weather stopping it after two sets on Tuesday. This match could have gone either way as Linette snatched the opening set with multiple momentum switches and breaks in a tiebreak settled exactly after one hour of play. The decider played on Wednesday was a battle of nerves with breakpoints on both sides, but it was the Pole who grabbed the only decisive break in the 8th game and served for the win later on. It's an ups and downs season for the 33-year-old veteran who had some highlights like the quarterfinals in Miami (and the upset against Coco Gauff), semifinals on grass in Nottingham, but also the downtimes of worse play for consecutive weeks. The general solidity helps Linette to stay around top 40 in both official rankings and the WTA Race.
Veronika Kudermetova faces Linette in another surprising match-up of the bottom half. The former world number 9 is playing her best tournament in 2025 since the Australian Open - the only one apart from Cincinnati where she won three matches in the main draw. This is a valuable run, as she scored two consecutive victories against top 20 players - Belinda Bencic and Clara Tauson. The match against the Dane was tormented by rain - rescheduled from Tuesday and suspended for a longer while on Wednesday. Tauson - the recent semifinalist from WTA 1000 in Montreal - was a favorite there and very comfortably won the opening set 6-3. Nothing looked like a turnaround was going to happen, as Tauson continued to dominate with an early break in the second set and having a breakpoint for a double break advantage in the third game. Kudermetova made a crucial hold there and managed to stay with Tauson till the tiebreak, where she forced a decider despite being 0-3 down as well. The trend switched from there as Kudermetova was making more pressure on her opponent in the third set and served up a great comeback win with a score of 3-6 7-6(4) 6-4 after 2:44 hours of play.
The match between Linette and Kudermetova has a double stake - not just the great run into the quarterfinals of a WTA 1000 event, but also the winner will be guaranteed to take a seeding spot in the upcoming US Open through the ranking list from next Monday - Kudermetova sits 34th now (Paula Badosa and Qinwen Zheng are known not to take part in the USO). Linette can overtake her in case of victory (36th in live ranking).
