We’ve only just reached the quarterfinal stage at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix and the Open Capfinances Rouen M\u00e9tropole, but the third week of the clay-court swing has already made a case for being the most dramatic of the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz season so far.<\/p>\n
Slow clay is a surface that rewards the battlers, the scrappers and the players who never say die, even when seemingly down and out. That’s been on show every day this week with a series of unlikely comebacks from the brink of defeat. Below, we run down eight of the wildest rollercoasters over the first two rounds in Stuttgart and Rouen — and ask you to pick your favorite of them.<\/p>\n
Laura Siegemund d. [LL] Viktoriya Tomova 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-1, Stuttgart R1<\/p>\n
Former champ Siegemund escapes Tomova in Stuttgart comeback thriller<\/p>\n
Former Stuttgart champion Siegemund is known as one of the most dogged competitors on tour. But after she sent a backhand sitter wide to go down 4-0 in the second-set tiebreak against Tomova, the German seemed disconsolate as she raised a hand to her eyes. She’d already been up a break three times in the set, and had failed to serve it out at 6-5. But she didn’t put another foot wrong in the tiebreak, reeling off seven straight points — including three clean winners, the most audacious of which was a drop shot to level at 4-4. It was a methodical comeback that encapsulated her overall approach to the game at the age of 38: she described her motivation to improve every little aspect of her game as “a stream that never gets empty.”<\/p>\n
Siegemund rolled through the third set to triumph in 2 hours and 43 minutes.<\/p>\n
Oleksandra Oliynykova d. Lilli Tagger 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, Rouen R1<\/p>\n
Oliynykova denies Tagger from 4-1 down in decider; into Rouen second round<\/p>\n
This Rouen opener between two players who have burst on to the scene in the past six months was always set to be a barnburner. On one side, the attacking play and one-handed backhand of 18-year-old Tagger; on the other, the web of moonballs, drop shots and slices of 25-year-old Oliynykova. The latter’s craft — as well as some clutch backhand winners down the line — won out as she came back from 4-1 down in the decider — a passage of play that saw Oliynykova win 10 straight points on serve, and grit out deuce tussles from game point down in both the final two games.<\/p>\n
[3] Jaqueline Cristian d. [WC] Tiantsoa Rakotomanga Rajaonah 2-6, 7-6(6), 7-5, Rouen R1<\/p>\n
Cristian saves four match points vs. Rakotomanga Rajaonah in Rouen marathon<\/p>\n
Twelve months on from reaching the Rouen quarterfinals on her WTA main-draw debut, Rakotomanga Rajaonah returned looking to kickstart her season. The Frenchwoman had lost her first seven matches of 2026, but had got on the board last week with a Billie Jean King Cup win from two match points down against Teodora Kostovic. She played like a dream for much of her opener against Cristian, whom she had defeated in the 2025 second round, with drop shot after drop shot foiling the Romanian.<\/p>\n
Rakotomanga Rajaonah was unable to convert three match points at 5-3 in the second set, or a fourth in the tiebreak — three due to unforced errors, and the other as Cristian came up with a solid one-two punch. She rediscovered her form to go up 4-0 in the decider, but missed a point for 5-0 as a drop shot drifted just wide. That was the opening Cristian needed: taking advantage as Rakotomanga Rajaonah lapsed into passive play, the World No. 33 upped her intensity and her aggression to grit out a 2-hour, 47-minute win.<\/p>\n
“I really wanted very much to prove to myself that I improved from last year and that my mental is not the same, that I’m stronger,” Cristian said. “I really believed in myself until the last ball and I really fought for everything. I really think my head today was the key.”<\/p>\n
Cristian’s four match points are the most saved by any player en route to a WTA main-draw win in 2026 so far.<\/p>\n
[4] Hailey Baptiste d. [WC] Jessika Ponchet 3-6, 7-6(6), 6-2, Rouen R1<\/p>\n
Baptiste denies home hope Ponchet from 6-3, 4-2 down in Rouen first round<\/p>\n
Cristian and Rakotomanga Rajaonah were followed on Centre Court by Baptiste and Ponchet, and for the second straight match the French crowd were denied a home win despite a hefty lead. Ponchet led 4-2 in the second set, but her best chance to close out the win came as she served at 6-5, 30-0. Two aggressive return points from the American pegged her back to 30-30, then Ponchet missed a short backhand that would have set up match point. In the ensuing tiebreak, Ponchet got within two points of victory again after saving triple set point from 6-3 down — but Baptiste found a service winner and a terrific lob to force a decider, which she rolled through with a run of six straight games.<\/p>\n
The No. 4 seed nearly repeated the escape in the second round, saving a match point in the second set against Iryna Shymanovich, but this time couldn’t repeat her third-set form, falling 6-3, 5-7, 6-3.<\/p>\n
Eva Lys d. [WC] Paula Badosa 2-6, 7-5, 6-4, Stuttgart R1<\/p>\n
Lys pulls off comeback vs. Badosa in Stuttgart for first win since January<\/p>\n
At 6-2, 4-1, 40-15 to Badosa, Lys’ hopes of scoring her first win since January in front of her home crowd seemed slim. But the Spaniard double faulted once, twice, a third time on a third game point, and again to give Lys break point. That was the opportunity she needed: from that point on, Lys’ high-octane ball-striking was in the ascendancy. The German fired a clean return winner to level at 4-4, then at 6-5 won one of the best rallies of the week with a flashy forehand crosscourt to bring up set point. In the decider, she pounced at 4-4, winning the last eight straight points of the match.<\/p>\n
“I went on court, and you guys could definitely see I wasn’t able to find my groove,” Lys said. “But I really tried not to look at the score and just tried to find my game. I feel like my goal for this match was to come closer and closer to the tennis I want to play, just find the rhythm, find the shots, because I just didn’t have the opportunity to play matches. The longer the match went on, the better I started feeling, the better I started playing. Honestly, even in the second set, I didn’t really think about winning the match. I just thought about keeping the same pace and the same shots going.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t expect to come out as a winner, but it just shows me that I’m definitely finding my game, and it’s definitely giving me confidence.”<\/p>\n
[6] Mirra Andreeva d. Jelena Ostapenko 5-7, 6-2, 6-3, Stuttgart R1<\/p>\n
Andreeva overturns 4-1 third-set deficit to dethrone Ostapenko in Stuttgart<\/p>\n
A marquee first round in Stuttgart between defending champion Ostapenko and No. 6 seed Andreeva, last week’s winner in Linz, lived up to its billing. It was the first time the pair had met, and momentum swung back and forth as Ostapenko’s power was pitted against Andreeva’s speed and strategy. Ostapenko hit two purple patches — once to steal the first set from 5-3 down, saving a set point along the way, and then again to go up 4-1 in the decider. But Andreeva shifted the match for the last time in her favor, finding a brilliant forehand winner on the line to hold in the subsequent game, and ultimately take the last five in a row.<\/p>\n
“She’s a very tough opponent to play against, because she just hits the ball very hard, and sometimes you just have to accept that at some moments you just cannot do anything,” Andreeva said. “You just have to accept that maybe she’s gonna be, like, on a roll and hitting winners, winners. I felt when she was 6-5 up in the first set, and then she see I was 40-0 up on my serve, and then she hit like five winners in a row and she ended up taking the first set. I’m like, well, it kind of hurt that I lost the game from 40-0, but what could I do here? She just hits five winners, and sometimes you just have to accept those things and move on and try to fight and try to find very small opportunities that can bring you back to the match.”<\/p>\n
[7] Karolina Muchova d. Elise Mertens 1-6, 6-3, 6-0, Stuttgart R2<\/p>\n
Muchova turns the tables on Mertens for three-set Stuttgart comeback<\/p>\n
Muchova didn’t come as close to defeat as some of the other players listed here, but the Czech’s comeback was still notable for how swift and absolute the turnaround was. Oddly, it was a Mertens hot shot that seemed to spark it off. The Belgian had played a flawless first set — nine winners to zero unforced errors — and raised her level even higher at the start of the second. A terrific cat-and-mouse point ended with a majestic Mertens lob to bring up break point. Moments later, she had converted for a 6-1, 2-0 lead. But that point seemed to galvanize Muchova: from that juncture on, she found her form while Mertens gradually lost control with nine double faults.<\/p>\n
“It’s tennis,” Muchova said with a shrug in her on-court interview. “You never know — it’s just about the fight … I was trying to hit, and it was out or in the net. Then I was trying to do the same thing, but be more aggressive, and I got the rhythm in the second set. I felt like I’d got back in the match, and of course she could feel that too. It can switch so easily in tennis.<\/p>\n
“Even if it’s a set and 5-0, you always have to fight and you always have to play every ball. There’s always that one point. It’s about who won the last point, so you never know.”<\/p>\n
Leylah Fernandez d. [Q] Zeynep Sonmez 6-7(2), 6-1, 7-6(5), Stuttgart R2<\/p>\n
Fernandez denies Sonmez from 5-1 down in decider to win 3:07 Stuttgart epic<\/p>\n
The last second-round match to be completed in Stuttgart and Rouen was also the longest of the week so far — a 3-hour, 7-minute marathon between Fernandez and Sonmez that ended past 11 p.m. local time. Fernandez had lost the first set from 4-1 up, but Sonmez’s failure to serve it out twice foreshadowed the drama that was to come.<\/p>\n
After a second-set swing towards the Canadian, Sonmez regained control with a brilliant break of serve in the first game of the decider, navigating five deuces while showing off her quick hands and feet to win her best points of the day. From there, she cruised to a 5-1 lead. But with the finishing line in sight, Sonmez’s serve once again faltered when called upon to close it out — three times, at 5-2, 5-4 and 6-5. In the first set, the Turkish player had recovered to play a top-quality tiebreak; this time, she would be unable to repeat that. Down 5-3 in the tiebreak, Fernandez won the key point, a 19-stroke tussle which she won with a bold down-the-line strike.<\/p>\n
“At 1-5 I just thought, ‘OK, fight,’ Fernandez said. “Hit 100 balls, put the balls in any which way and I’m glad that it worked out.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We’ve only just reached the quarterfinal stage at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix and the Open Capfinances Rouen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-613205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613205","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=613205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}