Victoria Mboko came out on top in a battle of teen sensations, as the 10th seed saved a match point to clinch a rollercoaster, 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(5) victory over Mirra Andreeva, reaching the Doha quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old Canadian triumphed in difficult, blustery conditions<\/a>, overcoming Andreeva<\/a>‘s tenacious defence and court coverage for the third top-10 win of her career. Andreeva served for the match in the final set, but was unable to get over the line, and exited the court in a flood of tears after two hours.<\/p>\n It was the second meeting between Andreeva and Mboko<\/a> this season, a match the former won 6-3, 6-1 against a hampered opponent in the Adelaide final in January.<\/p>\n “It took everything, and at the end, we were both pretty tired. I’m glad to pull through today and get the win,” Mboko said.<\/p>\n “It is my first time here, so far I am liking it a lot. I’m really excited to play here tomorrow.”<\/p>\n Facing off at the first WTA 1000 event of the year, Mboko started sharply, asserting her authority from the off to rush to a 3-1 lead. However, Andreeva, 18, retrieved the break to restore parity at 3-3, before Mboko soared ahead to take the first set.<\/p>\n The second set saw both players struggling to hold serve, trading breaks in the wind before Andreeva crucially held at 5-3 to take it to a decider.<\/p>\n The pair were a lot more solid on serve in the third, but Andreeva pounced at the right time to lead 5-4. However, she was broken back after squandering a match point, as her mood began to sour.<\/p>\n Mboko took the initiative in the tiebreak, producing some stellar tennis. In the end, on the third time of asking, she completed the win with a gorgeous backhand winner.<\/p>\n It is Mboko’s second appearance in a WTA 1000 quarter-final, after she announced herself to the world in Montreal back in August, beating four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka<\/a> to win the Canadian Open.<\/p>\n She will next face Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina<\/a>, who survived a fearsome barrage from Qinwen Zheng<\/a>. The Chinese star was in sensational ball-striking form despite suffering a high-quality 4-6, 6-2, 7-5<\/a> defeat, and can take plenty of positives from her impressive display.<\/p>\n Zheng, who is competing in her first tournament since September after suffering a serious elbow injury, came out with frightening aggression, catching Rybakina off guard with an assault on her serve.<\/p>\n But Rybakina’s quality eventually told, finding more consistency in the bigger moments with her backhand flourishing. As a result, she has extended her unbeaten run to nine matches.<\/p>\n Swiatek moves through<\/p>\n Iga Swiatek<\/a> survived a brief scare from Australia’s Daria Kasatkina<\/a>, battling from a set down to win 5-7, 6-1, 6-1<\/a>, setting up a quarter-final with Maria Sakkari<\/a>.<\/p>\n The top seed was well off her best in the opening exchanges, with the first set seeing five breaks of serve. Swiatek squandered a 5-3 lead as Kasatkina reeled off four straight games to go ahead.<\/p>\n Swiatek then fended off three break points at 1-1 in the second, but that proved to be the turning point, as the Pole went on to win the next seven games in a row, as well as 11 of the next 12.<\/p>\n The three-time champion has been a dominant force on these courts, reaching the quarter-finals for a fifth consecutive year.<\/p>\n Her last-eight opponent, Sakkari, sealed a first 1000 last-eight appearance since 2024, winning 7-6(3), 6-0<\/a> against qualifier Varvara Gracheva<\/a>.<\/p>\n 14th seed\u00a0Karolina Muchova<\/a> made her way safely through when fellow Czech and former world number one Karolina Pliskova<\/a> retired with a leg injury in the first set. She will face Anna Kalinskaya<\/a>, who beat Elina Svitolina<\/a>, 6-4, 6-3<\/a>.<\/p>\n Last year’s finalist, Jelena Ostapenko<\/a>, also progressed, while Elisabetta Cocciaretto<\/a> backed up her win over Coco Gauff<\/a> to book\u00a0her place in a maiden WTA 1000 quarter-final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victoria Mboko came out on top in a battle of teen sensations, as the 10th seed saved a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-474976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}