Ukraine advanced to the Billie Jean King Cup semifinals for the first time in its history after winning both singles matches against five-time champion Spain on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Kostyuk gives Ukraine a winning start<\/strong><\/p>\n In the first quarterfinal match, Ukraine\u2019s Marta Kostyuk, ranked No. 26, came from a break down in the first set to defeat No. 51 Jessica Bouzas Maneiro in straight sets. Bouzas Maneiro broke early to lead 3-1, but the 23-year-old Ukrainian rallied to win the set in a tiebreak. She then cruised through the second for a 7-6 (3), 6-2 victory, giving her nation a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Svitolina beats Badosa in three sets to clinch the tie<\/strong><\/p>\n In the second singles match, Spain\u2019s Paula Badosa, playing her first match since Wimbledon after a recurring back injury, claimed a tight first set 7-5 over Elina Svitolina to keep Spain\u2019s hopes alive.<\/p>\n But Svitolina, ranked No. 13, answered with a 6-2 second set and raced to a 4-1 lead in the decider. Badosa fought back to level the set before Svitolina earned the decisive break in the 12th game to close out a 5-7, 6-2, 7-5 win that sealed the tie for Ukraine.<\/p>\n The victory avenged Ukraine\u2019s only other meeting with Spain in the competition \u2014 a 3-1 defeat in a 2013 World Group II tie.<\/p>\n Ukraine to face Italy in semifinals<\/strong><\/p>\n Ukraine will next face another five-time champion, Italy, which defeated Japan 2-0 in Tuesday\u2019s first quarterfinal. The remaining quarterfinals are scheduled for Thursday: Kazakhstan vs. the United States and Great Britain vs. Japan.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukraine advanced to the Billie Jean King Cup semifinals for the first time in its history after winning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104,661],"class_list":{"0":"post-431373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain","11":"tag-text"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115220152934471149","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}