Romanian tennis players Jaqueline Cristian, Irina Bara and Andreea Mitu advanced on Thursday to the quarterfinals of the Koper Open (Slovenia), an ITF Women’s 60K event, write Agerpres.
Seed No. 10 Jaqueline Cristian (24, WTA’s 180th) defeated in the round of 16 Slovenia’s Veronika Erjavec (23, WTA’s 293rd) 7-6 (7/4), 6-4 after more than two hours on court (2 h 11 min), and is next to encounter Belarusian Kristina Dmitruk (19, WTA’s 228th), who outplayed top seed Jasmine Paolini of Italy 6-0, 6-2 in just 50 minutes.
Irina Bara (28, WTA’s 280) secured a 7-6 (9/7), 5-7, 7-6 (7/5) win against Croatian Jana Fett (26, WTA’s 250th) after three hours and 37 minutes. The Romanian saved five set points in the first act, came back in the second set from 1-5 to 5-5, but lost by 5-7 and battled it out to victory in the tiebreak of the third set.
In the quarterfinals, Bara will play Germany’s Silvia Ambrosio (26, WTA’s 412nd), a „lucky loser” who ousted Alexandra Cadantu-Ignatik in the second round.
Andreea Mitu (31, WTA’s 789th), coming from the qualifiers, defeated Slovenian Ziva Falkner (20, WTA’s 540th) 6-1, 6-1 (67 minutes), who had previously beaten second seed Leolia Jeanjean of France.
Mitu will now face Spaniard Jessica Bouzas Maneiro (20, WTA’s 183rd).
In the doubles competition, Bara and Mitu advanced to the semifinals after a 4-6, 7-6 (7/5), 10-5 victory over Russians Amina Anshba/Polina Kudermetova, seeded third, and are next to play the Czech duo Denisa Hindova/Aneta Kucmova.
