After Ajla Tomljanovic sealed a quarterfinal berth on the WTA event in Austin, Daria Saville matched that feat with on the concurrent occasion in Merida.
Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 27 February 2025 | Matt Trollope
Ajla Tomljanovic and Daria Saville continued their spectacular progress on tour this week, advancing to respective quarterfinals in Austin and Merida.
It marks the primary time in additional than 5 years that two Australian girls have reached quarterfinals at totally different WTA occasions in the identical week.
The final time was in January 2020, when Ash Barty progressed to the Adelaide quarterfinals on the similar time Lizette Cabrera reached the final eight in Hobart.
Maya Joint made it three Aussie quarterfinalists at WTA occasions in the identical week by routing Donna Vekic 6-1 6-2 to hitch Saville within the final eight in Merida.
MORE: Joint routs Vekic, cementing 15-year first for Aussie girls
RELATED: With newest win in Merida, Maya Joint set to make top-100 debut
Kimberly Birrell was onto one thing when discussing her compatriots on this week’s episode of The Sit-Down podcast.
“Clearly there’s been fairly a number of accidents inside our feminine cohort inside Australia, so I’m not evaluating myself to the opposite women,” she replied when discussing her place as high Aussie lady.
“And I do know that Dasha [Saville] and Ajla [Tomljanovic], once they’re again enjoying at their finest, they’re gonna be ranked effectively inside the highest 100.”
They’re not there but, however this week’s outcomes have ensured Tomljanovic and Saville are trending in that path.
Tomljanovic rises to a provisional rating of world No.103 after her newest success in Austin, her first tour-level quarterfinal since final 12 months’s grass-court event in Birmingham.
https://twitter.com/WTA/standing/1894865667607732273
The 31-year-old recovered from a set down towards Britain’s Jodie Burrage, profitable 11 of the final 13 video games, and the ultimate seven in a row, to storm to a 4-6 6-3 6-0 victory.
Birrell may have been her quarterfinal opponent in Texas, but the Queenslander fell in three tight units to Japanese qualifier Ena Shibahara afterward Thursday (AEDT).
Ought to Tomljananovic win that quarterfinal towards Shibahara, she is anticipated to return to the WTA high 100.
Additional south in Mexico, Saville progressed to her first tour-level quarterfinal since this time final 12 months, when she appeared within the WTA 500 quarterfinals in San Diego.
Merida can be a 500-level occasion, and Saville has reached the final eight there after spectacular wins over Ukrainians Marta Kostyuk and Anhelina Kalinina.
The latter was a compelling affair lasting nearly two hours and 42 minutes, throughout which Saville additionally rebounded from a set and a break right down to ultimately full a 4-6 6-2 6-2 triumph on her third match level.
comeback 🚨@Daria_gav | #MeridaOpenAKRON pic.twitter.com/nwmZqOzKoo
— wta (@WTA) February 26, 2025
“Actually powerful circumstances, it was actually scorching within the first set. I used to be preventing the climate a bit,” mentioned Saville, whose conquer Kostyuk marked her first top-20 win in three years.
“In the long run I really feel like I settled down a bit… it’s powerful circumstances, it’s a really bouncy courtroom and I really feel like we each had been making a number of errors off related balls, like making an attempt to determine whether or not we must always assault it or not, after which in the long run I felt like perhaps I used to be just a bit bit higher with that.
“Actually glad, and I really feel like I all the time play effectively in Mexico for some motive.”
The win units up a quarterfinal assembly with both No.2 seed Paula Badosa or Romania’s Jaqueline Cristian.
Saville will goal her first WTA-level semifinal since Hobart in January 2024. She is on a four-match profitable streak after coming via the qualifying rounds.
So too is Joint, one other Aussie qualifier who trounced fifth seed Vekic and who has surrendered simply 15 video games in 4 matches to get thus far of the event.
