Friday was another day bringing upsets in WTA 500 Guadalajara Open Akron, as none of the seeded players made it into the semifinals. Magdalena Frech got surprisingly eliminated by the 19-year-old Nikola Bartunkova, while the 3rd seed Jelena Ostapenko failed to prevail in her second round match against Marina Stakusic rescheduled from Thursday. The weekend's matches will emerge the new WTA 500 champion out of the interesting pack of four players who capitalized on the open draw and their good form throughout the whole week. The WTA 250 event in Sao Paulo has also brought significant upsets with three seeds getting crushed in Friday's quarterfinals.
Jacquemot vs. Arango
Elsa Jacquemot has won three consecutive matches against higher-ranked players, although she was a favorite according to pre-match odds against Tatjana Maria. The French player slipped away the opening set despite gaining the first break in the 5th game, as the German won 4 consecutive games to win 6-3. The second set was a similar story, as Jacquemot was unable to confirm the break advantage twice, getting under pressure while being 4-4 15-30 on serve. She won two games since then to force a decider. Despite struggling to cross the finish line from 4-1 up, Jacquemot broke Maria in the 10th game, converting the 4th of created match points to clinch the victory 3-6 6-4 6-4. The match was an interesting leveled battle with 27 pressure points created by Jacquemot and 26 by Maria. The French player survived the up-and-down form during the match, ultimately being the player who was on the front foot in all three sets.
Emiliana Arango is a specialist at playing on Mexican hard courts. The surprising runner-up of WTA 500 in Merida half a year ago is on the road to replicate this march in Guadalajara after scoring another confident victory over Marina Stakusic, winning 6-2 6-3. The Canadian qualifier was forced to play two matches in a day, as her tie against Jelena Ostapenko was rescheduled from Thursday. Stakusic has repeated the job done last year, when she performed an upset over the Latvian in the same tournament at the same stage in the round of 16. This time, she did not need to play the decisive tiebreak after over 3 hours of battle, however the match had a few momentum switches. Ostapenko was playing extremely erratically, which stands as her trademark this year. Multiple unforced errors including 13 double faults were not far from the standards of the Latvian over the past couple of months. Stakusic was on the road to a straightforward victory while leading 6-4 3-0, however Ostapenko somehow found a way to make this match competitive, forcing a third set after the tiebreak. She did not click into gear in the third set though, as Stakusic quickly ran away with the score and did not bottle the huge lead, winning 6-4 6-7(6) 6-2. That was a valuable victory for a player who made it into the main draw from qualies, but was unable to match Arango's performance a couple of hours later. The Colombian won 12 out of 17 pressure points on return and converted 6 out of 7 breakpoints in a match which was not as one-sided as the scoreline suggested, however Arango was very efficient in taking her chances.
Jovic vs. Bartunkova
The bottom half delivered a semifinal clash between two youngsters. Iva Jovic proved her abilities to be a dark horse of this tournament, which we expected as a possibility in our pre-event tournament preview. The 18-year-old American prevailed in the most dramatic of all quarterfinals, defeating Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva 6-3 3-6 7-6(6). Jovic was the favorite in that match and comfortably won the opening set to quickly gain the advantage in the second one. She was not able to finish the job though, as the Andorran representative forced a decider. Jimenez Kasintseva was the first to break in the third set, but wasted two chances to serve for the victory. The match was settled in the tiebreak, where Jovic came back from saving a match point on her own serve to win the three following points from 5-6 down to secure her first-ever career WTA semifinal.
Nikola Bartunkova made the best use of the wild card received from organizers, advancing into her first career WTA-level semifinal without losing a set on the road. The draw was favorable for the young Czech as she had not faced any player ranked in the top 150 in the first two rounds, however she proved her qualities by upsetting the defending champion Magdalena Frech. It was a match with the swing switching between both sides. Frech was leading by a break in both sets, but surprisingly it was the youngster who performed her best in the decisive stages of both parts of the match. She displayed cold nerves, not being shy to cross the line for the biggest success in her career so far, winning the two last service games without any doubt since being up a break in the second set. Bartunkova also performed a few good winners, which was the contrast to the 10 double faults committed in that match.
Friday of upsets in Sao Paulo
Apart from action in Mexico, the line-up of semifinals in WTA 250 Sao Paulo was also finalized on Friday after four pretty straightforward quarterfinals that all finished in straight sets. The most exciting one was surely the clash between Beatriz Haddad Maia and Renata Zarazua. The Brazilian was a huge favorite of the local crowd and looked like the favorite to win the whole tournament, while seemingly coming back to form after a poor season. She started on the front foot, leading 3-0 and having a chance to serve for the first set, but the Mexican fought back to get the first set on her account. The second set was a better serving performance from both with just two breakpoints in the decisive games. Haddad Maia did not convert her chance in the 7th game and got broken a few minutes later, which occurred to be ultimately decisive for the whole match. Zarazua won 7-6(5) 6-3 to get into her first semifinal of the year on WTA level, delivering another significant upset after defeating Madison Keys in the opening round of US Open. Zarazua will face the 19-year-old Tiantsoa Sarah Rakotomanga Rajaonah. The French player ranked 214th in the WTA list defeated 8th seed Panna Udvardy in straight sets.
Tjen's storming 2025 run
The bottom half delivered the elimination of the second and third seeds. Solana Sierra lost to Francesca Jones despite leading in both sets. The Brit won 6-3 6-4 to set up the semifinal tie against Janice Tjen. The Indonesian came back from being 0-3 down in the opening set against third seed Alexandra Eala to win 12 out of the 14 following games. The Indonesian has a lot of confidence, having an astonishing record of 57-8 on all levels of competition on hard courts this season. Competing mostly at ITF level, Tjen has lost just 5 out of her last 55 matches (!), but her transition to the WTA main tour looks promising - she managed to qualify into the main draw of US Open, putting an upset over Veronika Kudermetova in the opening round. The run in Sao Paulo proves that Tjen can become a full-time participant at the highest level of competition soon.
