Tunisian Anas Jaber avenged Bencic and reached the quarter-finals of the Madrid tournament to meet Halep
Tunisian Anas Jaber, ranked tenth in the world, avenged the thirteenth Swiss Belinda Bencic by defeating her 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals of the Madrid Championship on clay and beat two-time champion Simona Halep.
Last month, Jaber fell in the final of the Charleston Championships against Bencic, who won the gold in the Tokyo Olympics, in a three-set match that lasted two hours and 35 minutes, to be denied the crown of only her second title in her career.
"I came here for revenge... I wish I played like this in the final," said the Tunisian, after winning in one hour and 58 minutes.
The 27-year-old added, "I'm proud that I played like this today and won. Belinda is a great player and it's hard to face her. I'm happy with the level I played today and I hope to continue like this until the end of the tournament."
The match was stopped before the start of the third set due to rain, before it resumed under a closed roof.
The Tunisian also took revenge on Bencic, who knocked her out of the same round in Madrid last year, to win her first victory over the Swiss in the third confrontation between them, and set a date in the quarter-finals with Romanian Simona Halep, the title holder in 2016 and 2017, the winner of the young American Coco Gauff (16 in the world). 6-4, 6-4.
The Tunisian is still looking for her second title after winning the Birmingham English tournament on grass last year when she became the first Arab player to win a title in the WTA tournaments.
After the exit of the majority of the seeded women from the early stages and the absence of others from the tournament, Jaber is still the only seed among the top ten competing in Madrid.
However, despite the lack of many seeded women, Halep, who also finished runner-up in 2014 and 2019, will be the most prominent candidate for a third title in the Spanish capital.
And she renewed her victory over Gough (18) and maintained her perfect record against her in the three matches, the last of which was before today, the 32nd round of the Indian Wells Championship this year.
Jaber and Halep (21 globally) will meet for the fourth time, but the first on clay courts, and the Romanian beats Tunisia 2-1, the last of which is in the quarter-finals of Dubai this year and the 16th round in the same tournament in 2020, while the Arab player achieved her only victory in the 64th round of the Beijing tournament. 2018 when the Romanian withdrew after losing the first set.
Halep, who has won two major titles, was defeated in the previous round by the world's second-ranked and Spanish landowner Paula Padusa.
The former world number one, led by her new coach, French Patrick Mouratoglou, who has supervised the American legend Serena Williams for many years, hopes to restore the previous levels that enabled her to crown Roland Garros 2018 and Wimbledon 2019, after injury kept her from several tournaments last year.
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