Maria Sakkari battles past Elise Mertens in a roller coaster quarterfinal at St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy

Maria Sakkari advanced to the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy semifinal after a very intense battle against Elise Mertens winning 7-6(7) 6-2.

Sakkari dominated the H2H against Mertens in the past winning four of their five matches before this one. Some of them were close and some weren't with today's match somewhere in the middle. The first set was a proper roller coaster for both players and viewers as it featured a lot of twists and turns. Mertens opened a bit better taking a 2-1 lead but lost her serve in the next game.

She took a 4-2 but lost soon afterwards with the Greek taking the 5-4 lead. Sakkari had set points in the next game but Mertens hold and then broke the Greek for the 6-5 lead. Another twist came when she failed to serve out the set so we went into the tiebreak. In it, once again, a lot of twists and turns as Mertens was the first set point and then two more.

None were converted and Sakkar was able to convert her first one to win it 9-7. In the 2nd set, the Greek finally settled a bit and stopped playing erratic tennis. Her opponent completely fell apart and lost her serve early on. She battled in the next couple of games but got outplayed by Sakkari fairly easily with the Greek ultimately finishing off with 6-2.