Quarterfinal Friday: Pegula-Azarenka highlights line-up, Collins eyes more success
Credit One Charleston Open, Credit One Stadium
The battle between top seed Jessica Pegula and former world No.1 Victoria Azarenka highlights a must-see quarterfinal line-up set for Friday at the Credit One Charleston Open.
It’s a sixth career meeting between the two (Azarenka leads 3-2 head-to-head), as they both seek out a first-ever title in Lowcountry. But former champions Daria Kasatkina (2017) and Veronika Kudermetova (2021) are still alive, as is the WTA Tour’s most in-form player at the moment, Danielle Collins.
Collins won back-to-back matches on Thursday against two other former champions here in 2023 winner Ons Jabeur and 2016’s Sloane Stephens to advance into the quarterfinals, bringing her consecutive match win tally to 10 in a row dating back to the first round of Miami, where she won last week.
MORE: Updated draws | Friday schedule
“It [was] a really rewarding day for me,” Collins said after her double-duty morning, afternoon – and evening.
Collins is trying to become the first player since Serena Williams to win Miami and Charleston back-to-back. Serena last did it in 2013, and also in 2008. (In the past 28 years, the only other player to do so was Martina Hingis in 1997.)
Collins meets Elise Mertens in the bottom half of the draw, with the winner of that match to face either Kudermetova or No.3 seed Maria Sakkari.
On the top half, the Pegula-Azarenka winner will take on either Kasatkina or Jaqueline Cristian, the 83rd-ranked Romanian who has a Cinderella run here, beating two seeded Americans in Madison Keys and Emma Navarro to make her way into the last eight.
Kasatkina has quietly made her way through the draw, shrugging off a 6-0 second set in her opening match against Ashlyn Krueger. She was in fierce form on Thursday, denying Anhelina Kalinina in straight sets.
One doubles quarterfinal is still yet to be played, with Krueger and Sloane Stephens meeting the British duo of Heather Watson and Olivia Nicholls.
Quarterfinals are SET 💥
{1} Pegula V {12} Azarenka
{4} Kasatkina V Cristian{3} Sakkari V {9}Kudermetova
{11} Mertens V Collins#CharlestonOpen pic.twitter.com/UwPfcBWIDa— Credit One Charleston Open (@CharlestonOpen) April 5, 2024
