By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Saturday August 12, 2023
World No.4 Elena Rybakina saved a match level to defeat Daria Kasatkina in a late evening battle that completed simply earlier than 3 AM on the Omnium Banque Nationale in Montreal.
The Kazakh held on, 5-7, 7-5, 7-6(8) to set a semifinal with Liudmila Samsonova of Russia. Rybakina’s victory took three hours and 27 minutes on a protracted day in Montreal.
There was over 13 hours of tennis on a jam-packed day on Court docket Central that featured two three-hour epics and one other two contests that lasted nicely over two hours.
2022 Wimbledon champion Rybakina improves to 38-9 on the season, and 24-5 on onerous courts.
In a topsy-turvy affair that featured ten breaks of serve from every participant, Rybakina rebounded from a break down within the third set and saved a match level at 7-8 within the remaining set tiebreak.
UNRÉAL 🌙
Simply wanting 3am in Montréal after 3h27m of play, No.3 seed Elena Rybakina comes from a set right down to defeat Kasatkina 5-7, 7-5, 7-6(8) and attain the semifinals!#NBO23 pic.twitter.com/kuykyjYxHi
— wta (@WTA) August 12, 2023
Rybakina improves to 2-2 towards the 14th-ranked Russian–she has received a tour-leading 14 tiebreaks in 2023 (14-2), together with 9 on the WTA 1000 degree.
Friday’s marathon order of play featured double responsibility from Samsonova and Belinda Bencic, who moved via their spherical of 16 clashes earlier within the day earlier than clashing within the quarterfinals. By the point the pair met to kick off the evening session in Montreal, the order of play was already method not on time.
Bencic, who struggled to get previous Petra Kvitova within the spherical of 16, was overpowered by Samsonova, who hit 30 winners to simply six for Bencic in a 6-4 6-4 victory.
Samsonova, who beat No.2-seeded Aryna Sabalenka earlier on Friday, reaches her first WTA 1000 semifinal.