{"id":399165,"date":"2026-01-10T11:52:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T11:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/399165\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T11:52:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T11:52:13","slug":"elina-svitolina-survives-will-face-u-s-teen-jovic-in-auckland-semis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/399165\/","title":{"rendered":"Elina Svitolina survives, will face U.S. teen Jovic in Auckland semis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Top-seeded Elina Svitolina<\/a> produced another gritty performance Friday to beat Sonay Kartal<\/a> in three sets and reach the semifinals of the WTA Tour stop in Auckland.<\/p>\n

Svitolina, ranked No. 13, trailed 5-3 in the third set before rallying to beat Kartal 6-4, 6-7 (2), 7-6 (5).<\/p>\n

Kartal had the upper hand for most of the match, but Svitolina produced another superb defensive performance to stay in the match and clinch victory on her second match point.<\/p>\n

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“There’s still a lot of adrenaline after that last set and the tiebreaker, which is always very difficult and challenging,” said Svitolina, who was the runner-up in Auckland in 2024. “All the credit to Sonay. She played incredible, and I think she deserved even more than me to win today.”<\/p>\n

Svitolina broke Kartal in the opening game of the first set but lost her serve in the fourth game and rallied from 4-2 down to take the set.<\/p>\n

Kartal opened a 5-2 lead in the second set, but Svitolina again fought back to take the set to a tiebreaker. The British player had an early break in the final set, but Svitolina broke back in the 10th game, forcing a tiebreak in which she held her first match point at 6-4.<\/p>\n

“She was serving really well as well, so I had to stay tough and keep fighting and fighting again,” Svitolina said. “I think this brought me the win today.”<\/p>\n

Svitolina will face American Iva Jovic<\/a> in the semifinals Saturday.<\/p>\n

Alexandra Eala<\/a> progressed<\/a> by defeating Magda Linette<\/a> 6-3, 6-2. Eala will face China’s Wang Xinyu<\/a>, the No. 7 seed, in the semifinals. Wang advanced when Francesca Jones<\/a> withdrew with injury while trailing 6-4, 4-3.<\/p>\n

The tournament in Auckland is an important tuneup event for the Australian Open, the season-opening major that starts in Melbourne on Jan. 18.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Top-seeded Elina Svitolina produced another gritty performance Friday to beat Sonay Kartal in three sets and reach the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-399165","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}