One statistic in particular stands out from Oleksandra Oliynykova’s milestone 6-4, 6-4 win over No. 4 seed Wang Xinyu in the Transylvania Open quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
The result was the most significant of the 25-year-old’s career so far — it was her first defeat of a Top 50 player, and she advances to her first semifinal on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz as a result. To seal it, Oliynykova saved a remarkable 21 out of 23 break points against her. Her 91.3% rate of break points saved is the highest at tour level since full data began to be kept in 2021.<\/p>\n
Cluj-Napoca:\u00a0Scores<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Draws<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Order of play<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Oliynykova only conceded her serve twice, in the opening game of each set. In the first, she staved off three points to go down a double break at 3-0, and then a further five to hold for 3-2. In the second, she fended off five break points at 2-2 — one with an underarm serve — and another two at 2-2.<\/p>\n Afterwards, the Ukrainian linked her resilience in key moments to the perspective brought by living in a country entering its fourth year of war brought on by the Russian invasion of 2022. At the Australian Open, Oliynykova — whose father is a soldier in the Ukrainian army — spoke about how the apartment opposite hers had been struck by a drone the night before she departed for her first Grand Slam. Her arrival in Cluj-Napoca this week was nearly stymied when Kyiv was hit by a mass power outage as she was about to catch her train.<\/p>\n “I didn’t know this statistic but you know, I’m coming from a country where there is war and you don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring,” Oliynykova said in her on-court interview.<\/p>\n “So for me, it’s so important during such hard times in my country, I learned to enjoy every moment of tennis. In some way I really celebrate the game. I’m doing this for sport, for tennis.<\/p>\n “The key — not only today, but in general of the progress I’ve made — it stopped, to me, to be more important whether I win or lose. I’m happy to win, of course — it means a lot, but it’s not the most important thing. I learned to be in the moment.”<\/p>\n On a more light-hearted note, Oliynykova’s “celebration of the game” also extends to the temporary facial decorations that have become her signature aesthetic. In Melbourne, there were flowers; in Cluj-Napoca, a tournament which leans heavily into its Dracula-related branding, Oliynykova has chosen a row of small bats on her cheeks.<\/p>\n “It’s thematic,” she said with a grin, before explaining that the tournament is a special one for her — she had entered it for the first time last year, but didn’t even make the qualifying cut-off. Now ranked No. 91 and assured of a new career high next week, that’s not a problem she’ll face again any time soon.<\/p>\n Raducanu holds off Chwalinska to make Cluj-Napoca semifinals<\/p>\n Oliynykova will have the opportunity to keep her dream run in just her second tour-level main draw going when she takes on No. 1 seed Emma Raducanu in the semifinals. The Briton came through a tricky quarterfinal against qualifier Maja Chwalinska 6-0, 6-4, showing controlled aggression to deal with the Pole’s defense and finesse.<\/p>\n This time last year, Oliynykova was yet to face a Top 100 opponent. Now, she’ll face her second Grand Slam champion within three weeks, having fallen 7-6(6), 6-1 to Madison Keys in the Australian Open first round. However, she has crossed paths with Raducanu before — indeed, Oliynykova was the second opponent of Raducanu’s professional career.<\/p>\n Back in 2018, they played at the lowest rung of the ladder — the second round of ITF W15 qualifying in Nanjing, China, with a 15-year-old Raducanu making her professional debut. She defeated the 17-year-old Oliynykova 7-6(2), 6-1 before falling to Cao Siqi in the final qualifying round.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One statistic in particular stands out from Oleksandra Oliynykova’s milestone 6-4, 6-4 win over No. 4 seed Wang…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,1068,661,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-744937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-text","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116020402146690736","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744937","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=744937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}