STUTTGART (AFP) – Top seed Elena Rybakina saved two match points against unseeded Canadian Leylah Fernandez to advance to the semi-finals of the WTA Stuttgart tournament where she will meet Russian teenager Mirra Andreeva.

Rybakina, the 2024 Stuttgart winner, needed three hours to get past Fernandez 6-7 (5/7), 6-4, 7-6 (8/6), saving two match points in the final-set tiebreak.

Earlier Andreeva rallied past two-time Stuttgart champion Iga Swiatek 3-6, 6-4, 6-3.

“Especially in the beginning there was a lot of frustration. I was just going downhill. The serve was not going,” Rybakina said.

“Somehow I found the fight in me and a couple of points were important in the second set. And somehow I started finding this momentum.”

Swiatek has won four of her six Grand Slams on the French Open clay and was considered among the favourites but struggled against the energetic Russian.

The Pole capitalised on some clumsy baseline errors from her opponent to win the opening set but Andreeva converted a crucial break point to take the second set. Swiatek ran out to a two-game lead in the deciding set but Andreeva broke back twice to take the initiative, and the match.

The 18-year-old rising star also eliminated defending champion Jelena Ostapenko in the first round of the tournament.

“She’s won so many tournaments I can’t even count how many Slams she’s won… she’s a past winner of this tournament as well,” Andreeva said.

“I was telling myself: ‘No matter what’s happening, I have to keep fighting and keep believing. I can win from any score.”

-- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin