Muguruza, Azarenka through to Qatar Open semifinals

Garbine Muguruza and Victoria Azarenka advanced to the Qatar Open semifinals after victories over Sakkari and Svitolina.

A very eventful Thursday day in Qatar featured some spectacular matches with two of them giving us two strong semifinalists. Victoria Azarenka played against Elina Svitolina and when she took a medical timeout in the 2nd game it looked grim for her. But she soon started playing the way she can and rushed to a very quick victory over the top seed. The 81-minute endeavour ended with Azarenka winning the match 6-2 6-4 just like she did the previous three. Svitolina was simply overmatched and she could not do much in this match.

Joining Azarenka in the semifinal will be Garbine Muguruza who earned a place in the semifinal after defeating Maria Sakkari. It was another great display by Garbine who defeated Sabalenka in the previous round and continued her good play today as well. The opening set featured three breaks in total as both players found ways to break each other with Muguruza doing it twice. She served well and played well from the baseline overmatching Sakkari in key rallies.

The 2nd set was a total dominance by Garbine who it with 6-1 and moved to the Qatar Open semifinals.