Maria Sakkari will make her debut on the Akron WTA Finals in Guadalajara. The World No.7 from Greece clinched her spot on the prestigious year-ending championships after advancing previous an injured Anna Kalinskaya, 6-2, 1-0, ret. within the second spherical of the VTB Kremlin Cup on Thursday.
The one Greek lady to have reached the High 10, Sakkari continues a breakthrough season the place she made her High 10 debut, reached her first WTA singles ultimate since 2019 in Ostrava, and made two Grand Slam semifinals at Roland Garros and US Open.
No.3 seed Sakkari, at present at her career-high rating, has made the elite eight in Moscow in her second look on the match, following a first-round loss to former champion Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in 2019.
Sakkari eased by the primary set in half an hour and grabbed an early service break within the second set, at which level qualifier Kalinskaya deemed herself unable to proceed. Kalinskaya is coming off a sterling run to the Indian Wells spherical of 16 as a qualifier simply final week.
Earlier on Thursday, No.9 seed Anett Kontaveit of Estonia made her approach into the VTB Kremlin Cup quarterfinals, easing previous former High 10 participant Andrea Petkovic of Germany, 6-1, 6-4.
World No.20 Kontaveit is into the Moscow quarterfinals for the second time in her final two showings. She additionally reached the elite eight in her earlier look in 2018, earlier than falling to eventual finalist Ons Jabeur.
It took the Estonian solely an hour and 9 minutes to greatest Petkovic and enhance her head-to-head towards Petkovic to 2-0.
Kontaveit continues a blistering second half of the season, having gained 18 of her final 20 matches. That run of fantastic kind contains her second and third WTA singles titles, at Cleveland and Ostrava respectively.
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