Photo: Valérie Simard
The Saguenay National Bank Challenger quarter-finals wrapped up tonight with some familiar faces and new names competing in a slew of tough battles.
Canadians Katherine Sebov and Isabelle Boulais won their respective matchups and will face off in the semifinals on Saturday.
The final match of the quarter-finals left us with a Canadian duel between first-seed Katherine Sebov and the promising Victoria Mboko. The former held on to a dominant win against the 17-year-old with the match going 6-2, 6-4.
The first match of the day was between the Lithuanian Mikulskyte, who was seeded sixth, and Australian two seed Rodionova, the latter of whom won the match in straight sets 6-1, 6-4. Mikulskyte had difficulty in her service games, dropping five of them.
24-year-old Fanni Stollar of Hungary came out victorious in a thriller against Robin Anderson of the United States that went 6-7(5). 6-1, 6-3. After an initial hard-fought set that landed in Anderson’s favour, Stollar came away with an epic comeback that left Anderson in the dust.
Fanni Stollar and Arina Rodionova go at it for a chance to play in the finals on Sunday.
Read more: Dabrowski Clinches WTA Finals to Cap Off Dream Weekend for Canada
Anderson, perhaps plagued by fatigue following a lengthy first set, wittled away in the following two sets with Stollar breaking her serve five times in that span. Anderson came close to keeping her set alive in the final game but fell just short as Stollar managed to break her save to close out the match.
The third match of the day featured a match between Madison Sieg and Canadian Isabelle Boulais, who held a wild card spot, in which the latter took home a victory in straight sets 6-3, 7-6(7). Sieg didn’t give Boulais much trouble in the first set but put up a fight in a long-lasting second set that concluded in a lengthy tiebreak.
Sebov was indeed the favourite to win the matchup, but Mboko’s promising second set showed several moments of resilience.
Read also: Victoria Mboko Goes Back-to-Back in Saskatoon
Elsewhere in the doubles, the semifinals began. The Canadian team composed of Isabelle Boulais and Layne Sleeth dropped straight sets 7-5, 6-4 to the duo consisting of Canadian Mia Kupres and Danish Johanne Christine Svendsen. The entire match was a tale of breaks of serves which the latter managed to capitalize on in clutch moments including the final game of each set.
The only other doubles match of the night featured an all-American battle between Carolyn Campana and Ivana Corley versus Robin Anderson and Dalayna Hewitt, with the latter winning straight sets 6-4, 6-0.
The doubles final will take place tomorrow with Kupres and Svendsen facing off against Anderson and Hewitt.
