Haddad Maia and Sakkari advance at the Qatar Open

Paula Badosa and Maria Sakkari played solid matches to advance at the Qatar Total Open beating solid players like Qinwen Zheng and Beatriz Haddad Maia.

Paula Badosa made a return to tennis in Doha facing a very tricky player in Haddad Maia. They played earlier this year with the Spaniard winning in two sets but this match was far more complicated. She was coming back from an injury and she was quite rusty. Despite all of that, Badosa fought valiantly pushing the Brazilian quite hard in the first set.

She battled back from a break down a couple of times in the first set forcing a tiebreak and it was a tight one. Haddad Maia eventually took it 7-5 with her playing well in the second set as well. She didn't need a tiebreak this time around as she closed it out 6-3 to advance at the event. A pretty big win for the Brazilian.

Maria Sakkari had a tougher time as she needed three sets to defeat Qinwen Zheng. She took the first set fairly comfortably 6-2 hitting the ball really well. The second set saw Zheng play some amazing tennis to take it 6-3 with the final one going to Sakkari as well. Zheng didn't serve as well as she needed to and that was a problem.