Top 4 seeds Elena Rybakina and Paula Badosa were among the players who moved into the quarterfinals of the WTA 500 Internationaux de Strasbourg on Tuesday.
Strasbourg: Draws | Scores | Order of play
No. 4 seed Rybakina of Kazakhstan, the 2022 Wimbledon champion, took just 64 minutes to get past 42nd-ranked Wang Xinyu of China 6-1, 6-3 on Tuesday.
After her first-round bye, World No.12 Rybakina had a superb showing in her first Strasbourg match in five years. Her last Strasbourg appearance was a good one: she made the 2020 final here, finishing runner-up to Elina Svitolina.
Rybakina’s celebrated serve was extremely successful on Tuesday: she was never broken and fired six aces. Rybakina is now 2-0 against Wang, having already beaten the Chinese player in straight sets at 2019 Nanchang.
“It’s not easy, [Wang] plays really aggressive too, and I knew we would not have long rallies,” Rybakina said on court after her win. “So I was focusing on my serve. Really served better in the second set.”
Rybakina’s quarterfinal opponent will be Magda Linette of Poland. Linette topped 2021 Strasbourg champion Barbora Krejcikova in the first round, and followed up with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Rebecca Sramkova on Tuesday.
Rybakina has beaten Linette in each of their two previous matches, which were both on indoor hard court at 2021 Ostrava and 2023 Billie Jean King Cup.
Later in the day, No. 3 seed Badosa of Spain advanced into the quarterfinals when Czech Marie Bouzkova retired at 3-3 in the first set due to a left thigh injury.
After her first-round bye, World No. 10 Badosa was playing her first match in two months, since she gave a walkover to Alexandra Eala in the Miami Round of 16. The Spaniard has had to pull out of events due to back issues since then.
Bouzkova was up a break two times in Tuesday’s match, which featured six lengthy games. But she took a medical time-out for an injury at 3-2 and decided not to continue almost immediately afterwards.
“It was 3-3 but it was a very long match, as you can see, 40 minutes,” Badosa said on court, after the match. “It’s always a battle with Marie. And I feel very sorry for her with what happened because it was in the middle of the match, so it wasn’t expected from her side.
“Me, I’m happy to be back after two months. It was a tough journey, so finally being back and getting minutes on court, I really appreciate it. I’m still very far from my level, but hopefully I can be there soon.”
Contesting the Strasbourg tournament for the first time, Badosa will face No. 8 seed Liudmila Samsonova in the quarterfinals. Samsonova, a semifinalist last year, topped wild card Diane Parry 6-4, 6-4 in Tuesday’s last match.
Samsonova has a 3-1 head-to-head lead over Badosa. However, Badosa won their most recent match, in the Washington D.C. Round of 16 last year, en route to the title. This will be their first meeting on clay.
