There were mixed fortunes for seeded players as Day 4 of the Cincinnati Open got under way with a series of nailbiting matches.<\/p>\n
No. 7 Jasmine Paolini advanced in two fluctuating tiebreak sets, 7-6(2), 7-6(5) over Maria Sakkari. However, No. 17 Belinda Bencic fell 6-4, 7-6(0) to Veronika Kudermetova in the 11th edition of their rivalry.<\/p>\n
Cincinnati: <\/strong>Draws<\/strong><\/a> | <\/strong>Scores<\/strong><\/a> | <\/strong>Order of Play<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Meanwhile, No. 3 Iga Swiatek and No. 23 Jelena Ostapenko both advanced via walkover. Swiatek had been due to face No. 25 Marta Kostyuk in Monday’s third-round action, but the Ukrainian was forced to withdraw due to a right wrist injury. Ostapenko had been scheduled to face Camila Osorio in Sunday’s second-round action, but an abdominal injury ended the Colombian’s hopes before she took to the court.<\/p>\n Ostapenko will face either No. 15 Daria Kasatkina or Lucia Bronzetti in the third round. Swiatek will play either Sorana Cirstea or lucky loser Yuan Yue in the fourth round.<\/p>\n Paolini, Kudermetova take the scenic route to victory<\/strong><\/p>\n Paolini’s last encounter with Sakkari had been a bruising 6-2, 6-1 loss in the Madrid third round in April in which the outcome rarely seemed in doubt. The rematch was the opposite: a wild ride through momentum shifts and oscillating fortunes that could have tipped either way. Paolini sped out to a 5-1 lead in the first set, only for Sakkari to save four set points — with one clean forehand winner and three unreturned serves — as she battled back to force a tiebreak. But despite the swing in momentum towards Sakkari, it was Paolini who dominated it as the Greek player repeatedly sent the ball long.<\/p>\n The second set reached a tiebreak via more conventional means as neither player was broken, but once again Sakkari lapsed into error once there. But with Paolini standing at 6-0 with sextuple match point, the Italian netted a volley into the open court — and Sakkari roared back to save the first five match points. But with just one more to go to level at 6-6, Sakkari double faulted for the second time in the tiebreak to send Paolini through.<\/p>\n The pair’s head-to-head is now level at two wins apiece, with Paolini winning both of their hard-court meetings and Sakkari triumphing twice on clay. Paolini will next face No. 26 seed Ashlyn Krueger, who also came through a see-saw battle, 6-4, 0-6, 6-3 over Anastasija Sevastova.<\/p>\n Hot shots: Two incredible passes from Veronika Kudermetova in Cincinnati<\/p>\n Kudermetova’s upset of Bencic, her fifth Top 20 win of 2025, wasn’t quite as dramatic. Nonetheless, the World No. 36 had to come from 3-1 down in the first set, winning five of the next six games, and then hold off a late Bencic charge from 5-3 in the second set. Kudermetova came up with the more spectacular plays when it mattered, including a pair of remarkable angled backhand passes at full stretch, one in each set.<\/p>\n Like Sakkari, Bencic played her best tennis with her back to the wall to force a tiebreak, but once there delivered flat, error-strewn tennis.<\/p>\n Bencic and Kudermetova have now played each other 11 times at pro level since 2018. Bencic still leads the head-to-head 5-4 (and 3-2 on outdoor hard courts).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There were mixed fortunes for seeded players as Day 4 of the Cincinnati Open got under way with…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":135162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[62,1464,4063,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-135161","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-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115006278891500810","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}