Sloane Stephens squeezes into Guadalajara quarterfinals

Sloane Stephens advanced to the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open by eking out a 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3) win over ​fifth-seeded Janice Tjen of Indonesia on Tuesday in ‌Mexico. After a first set that featured no service breaks, Tjen had two set points while serving at 5-2 in the second ​set. Stephens recovered to take that game, then ​broke serve again to level the set 5-5 ⁠before prevailing in another tiebreaker. Stephens, the 2017 US ​Open champion, won despite failing to save either of the ​break points on her serve and despite hitting just two aces to Tjen’s 11. Next up for Stephens will be an all-U. S. matchup ​against Peyton Stearns, who upset fourth-seeded Diane Parry ​of France 6-2, 7-5. In the day’s other second-round results, third-seeded Sara Bejlek ‌of ⁠the Czech Republic eliminated Alycia Parks 6-4, 6-3, and sixth-seeded Cristina Bucsa of Spain downed Hungary’s Panna Udvardy 6-4, 6-4. SP Open Ninth-seeded Darja Semenistaja of Latvia, who had ​lost her past ​nine main-draw ⁠matches, earned a first-round win in Sao Paulo, defeating Japan’s Hayu Kinoshita 7-5, 6-4. Semenistaja’s ​skid included opening-round defeats at Wimbledon and ​the ⁠U. S. Open, each of which she reached as a lucky loser from qualifying. Elsewhere at the rain-delayed tournament, Armenia’s Elina ⁠Avanesyan beat ​Argentina’s Julia Riera 6-2, 6-4; ​Serbia’s Teodora Kostovic downed Brazil’s Victoria Luiza Barros 6-2, 6-4; and Argentina’s Nadia ​Podoroska got past Italy’s Lucrezia Stefanini 6-3, 6-4.

Read full story on Business Recorder