Halep and Bouchard continue form upon return to proceed to Prague quarter finals

A HUGE day six of action was once again only partially complete with one match delayed because of weather once more but the remaining four Round of 16 matches complete. The victor of the game between Irina-Camelia Begu and Leonie Kung will be in the tough position of backing up for the quarter finals, with Kung narrowing winning the first set before the delay set in for the 7-6 0-0 scoreline.

As predicted prior to either match starting, the weather delays did not work in the favour of Laura Siegemund and Tamara Zidansek, with the two players backing up for their third match on the trot and ultimately going down to their respective well-rested opposition in Sara Sorribes Tormo and Eugenie Bouchard. Sorribes Tormo was clinical against Siegemund, completing the 6-2 6-3 victory in just over and hour and a half, the shortest match for the day. Despite the rest, Bouchard’s victory over Zidansek was nowhere near as simple and needed almost three hours to shake off the tenacious Slovenian, 7-6 6-7 6-2. It was Bouchard’s serve that saved her, with her six aces to zero paying off despite her four double faults. Bouchard won 70.6 per cent of her first serve points and also won 11 more points off Zidansek’s first serve which clearly paid off. 

The sole seed taking the court for the day, Simona Halep was once again taken to three sets, but still ran out victor and this time around had a far easier final set to make up for a frustrating first set against a quickfiring Barbora Krecjikova to run out winner, 3-6 7-5 6-2. Halep cleaned up her act after the first set, winning just 37.5 per cent of her first serves early before finishing with close to a 60 per cent winning rate with a much more clinical and clean second and third set effort. It was a fantastic effort by Krejcikova though, with the 118th ranked Czech pushing Halep for much of the match. The final matchup of the day saw Magdalena Frech and Arantxa Rus go head-to-head, with Rus eventually running out victor with a 6-3 2-6 6-4 effort.

Heading to the quarter finals tomorrow, expect some interesting results with the victor of the Begu-Kung matchup to take on Sorribes Tormo who has been firing on all cylinders over the past week. The 174th ranked Frech will have her work cut out for her when she takes on world number two, Halep, while Bouchard will have a tough test against third seed Elise Mertens. The final match will see Ana Bogdan and Kristyna Pliskova take the court.

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