Melbourne: Poland’s Magda Linette stunned World No.4 Frenchwoman Caroline Garcia in straight sets to reach her first Grand Slam quarterfinal here Monday.
Playing in her 30th Grand Slam main draw, Linette registered a 7-6(3), 6-4 upset win over WTA Finals champion Garcia in 1 hour and 57 minutes. She will next face former World No.1 Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic.
The win over Garcia is Linette’s fourth career top-10 victory, and all four of them have come at Grand Slams. Three of them have been over the top-5 opponents.
“I still can’t believe it. I don’t know what happened. I’m speechless really. I don’t want to say I didn’t expect it, because coming on the court I was confident with how well I was playing, but she’s such an amazing opponent and such a tough one, especially on a big stage. I’m just glad I stayed composed throughout the first set and managed to come back again,” Linette said in her on-court interview.
On the other hand, Pliskova extended her head-to-head dominance over Zhang Shuai of China to advance to her 11th career Grand Slam quarterfinal.
The Czech’s 6-0, 6-4 win in just 55 minutes improved her career record against Zhang to 8-0, and put her into the final eight of the Australian Open for the fourth time.
Back in familiar territory 😎
🇨🇿 @KaPliskova reaches her fourth #AusOpen QF!#AO2023 pic.twitter.com/vqJWIbILqu
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 23, 2023
The former No.1 came from 2-4 down in the second set but cruised against No.23 seed Zhang, who is a former Australian Open quarterfinalist. With the win, Pliskova improves to 11-3 in her career in Grand Slam fourth rounds, including 4-0 at the Australian Open.
Pliskova is 7-2 in her career against Linette. They played twice last year, splitting those meetings. Pliskova won a thriller at the US Open in a third-set tiebreak, 6-2, 4-6, 7-6(8), but Linette got her revenge at the Billie Jean King Cup Finals in Glasgow in November with 6-4, 6-1 win.
IANS
