Daria Kasatkina advances and Liudmila Samsonova begins run at 2023 WTA Elite Trophy as more players eliminated on Day Three

Day Three of the 2023 WTA Elite Trophy took place today, Thursday, October 26, at the Hengqin International Tennis Center in Zhuhai, China. Here is our round-up of the day's events, as Daria Kasatkina advanced to the semi-finals, Liudmila Samsonova began her run, and more players were eliminated.

First up, sixth seed Kasatkina faced eleventh seed Magda Linette in the Azalea group. The Russian won the match in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4, and thus became the first player to advance from the round-robin stage and qualify for the semi-finals of the prestigious WTA Elite Trophy.

This came after she defeated top seed Barbora Krejcikova yesterday, October 25. Both Krejcikova and Linette are now out of the competition.

In the Rose group, fourth seed Samsonova played her first match of the tournament against wildcard Zhu Lin. The home player had pulled off an impressive victory Veronika Kudermetova prior to this clash, but Samsonova was able to survive their three-set battle to win 2-6, 6-2, 6-1.

She will face Kudermetova tomorrow, October 27, to decide who will qualify from their group.

Meanwhile, third seed Jelena Ostapenko fought back against tenth seed Donna Vekic in the Orchid group to win 4-6, 6-4, 6-1. The Latvian player bounced back in the second set and ultimately eliminated Vekic from the tournament, as the Croatian player had previously lost to seventh seed Qinwen Zheng.

Ostapenko will face Zheng on Friday to decide which of the two will make the semi-finals.

The only group not to play today was the Camellia group, who knocked second seed Madison Keys out of the tournament yesterday. The remaining players - Beatriz Haddad Maia and Caroline Garcia - will be back in action when they face off against each other tomorrow.