Angelique Kerber must overcome Carla Suarez Navarro in the Western & Southern Open quarter-finals to progress her bid to reach the top of the WTA rankings.
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If Kerber wins on Sunday, she will displace Serena Williams as world number one, ending the American’s run of 183 consecutive weeks at the top.
Australian Open champion Kerber faced Czech Republic’s Barbora Strycova, who she led 4-1 in head to head record but Strycova had won in straight sets when they last met earlier this year in Madrid.
Fresh from victor silver for Germany at Rio 2016, Kerber has hit the ground running in Cincinnati. The Scot won 20 of his 24 service points, 8 of 9 net points, and finished with a cleaner victor to unforced error ratio than his opponent, 15-17 for Murray and 11-20 for Monaco.
The German trailed 0-30 in the final game of the deciding set as she tried to serve it out, saving three break points and finally advancing in the summer heat on a third match point.
Following another weather-affected day, Halep eased past Gavrilova 6-1 6-2 in just 53 minutes.
Reigning French Open champion Muguruza defeated Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 7-5, 6-1 at the Lindner Family Tennis Center, with Babos shocking Dominika Cibulkova by recovering to triumph 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.
The eighth-seeded Slovak huffed and puffed, but fell short against qualifier Babos.
Milos Raonic also advanced with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Dominic Thiem.
She finished with 32 winners against 39 unforced errors.
She will face ninth seed Carla Suarez Navarro next, who stunned the sixth seed Roberta Vinci in straight sets 6-1, 7-5.
Czech 15th seed Pliskova fired down 15 aces as she accounted for Misaki Doi 7-5 6-3, while seventh seed Kuznetsova prevailed 6-2 3-6 6-2 against 12th seed Timea Bacsinszky after more than two hours on court.
“I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my career, but I’m having the best year of my career and it’s still not over”, the left-hander said. “I have great memories from the last few years, and the fans are fantastic”.
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And now, she could wind up getting passed by Kerber, who doesn’t want to put any more pressure on herself. Kuznetsova and Pliskova will meet in the quarterfinals.
