Madrid (AFP)
World No. 1 Ashleigh Barty contained the power of Petra Kvitova (12th), beaten 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 in just under two hours, to reach the semi-finals of the Madrid tournament on Wednesday .
The Australian will find a surprise guest there, the Spaniard Paula Badosa (23), 62nd in the world and beneficiary of an invitation, she fell a little earlier from the Swiss Belinda Bencic (11th) 6-4, 7-5.
If Barty had preferred to stay in Australia as a precaution when the circuit resumed its rights at the time of the pandemic last summer, she has not scattered since she made the decision to travel again: since she has left her country in March, she won in Miami, Stuttgart (Germany) ten days ago, and here she is in the last four in Madrid.
On red clay, she thus stretches her streak of consecutive victories to fourteen.
Badosa, she confirms her attractive form of the moment: she obtained the first two victories of her career against top 20 players in Charleston (United States) a month ago - including one against the world No. 1 in the quarter-finals - and records his third on the clay court of Madrid.
His career has already enabled him to climb to the gates of the top 40 next week.
© 2021 AFP