Wednesday at the Qatar Total Open saw all seeded players that were in action advance to the quarterfinals, including top seed Simona Halep and third seed Angelique Kerber, while Karolina Pliskova was forced to withdraw from the event due to a viral illness, being replaced by her twin sister Kristyna Pliskova, who lost her second-round match to Elise Mertens.
Halep ensured rise to No.2 in the WTA rankings by winning her opener against Lesia Tsurenko 6-2 6-3, while Kerber won her 600th career match by beating Anett Kontaveit, to whom she had lost 18 straight games before today’s encounter in Doha.
Ninth seed Julia Goerges made her way into the quarterfinals with an epic three-set victory over Alison Riske, fourth seed Elina Svitolina defeated Jelena Ostapenko for the very first time, Czech qualifier Karolina Muchova eliminated Hsieh Su-wei, Barbora Strycova bageled Anna Blinkova twice in their three-setter, and fifth seed Kiki Bertens recovered from losing the first set by handing Carla Suarez Navarro two breadsticks.
Our hard-working photographer Jimmie48 made it to seven of these eight second-round matches, plus to a couple of practice sessions and press conferences! Enjoy!
Quarterfinals are on tomorrow’s schedule and the pairs are Svitolina vs. Muchova, Strycova vs. Kerber, Halep vs. Goerges, and Bertens vs. Mertens.
MORE QATAR TOTAL OPEN 2019 PHOTOS:
- Tuesday: Top seed Halep arrives, first-round action completes
- Monday: Players’ party
- Sunday: Second round of qualifying
