Rybakina stuns Pliskova while Brady overcomes Muguruza

The Dubai Duty Free Championship quarterfinals brought some good tennis so let's see what happened. The first match the Dubai crowd saw was between Pliskova and Rybakina. The Russian is having a great run recently reaching the Ladies Trophy final where she lost to Bertens. She continued her great run in Dubai and today she stunned Pliskova 7-6(1) 6-3.

It was a great display by the Russian whose victory was due to her great serving. A total of 11 aces while winning 80 % of her 1st serve points was more than enough to overcome Pliskova today. She was solid from the baseline as well as commiting far fewer mistakes than her opponent. Obviously a dominant serve aided her in that endeavour.

The 2nd match in Dubai was between Brady and Muguruza. Brady has been playing exceptionally well combining a mixture of solid baseline play with aggressive serve and volley play. The Spanish player showed a good level so far as well.

She wasn't so good at the beginning of this match. She allowed Brady to jump out to an early 5-2 lead. Brady played very aggressively and Muguruza didn't know how to counter it. Luckily for her Brady started making mistakes which allowed the Spaniard to fight back to make it 5-5.

The Dubai crowd enjoyed a really good match which would determine the 2nd semifinalist of the Dubai Duty Free Championship. We had to go the full distance to determine the 1st set victor and it was Muguruza who came out on top 7-6(5).

The 2nd set brought a drop in both player's level of play. Both of them struggled with their serve hitting it below 50 % of the time. Muguruza struggled massively on her 2nd set winning only 4/13 points on it. Brady was much better on her own 2nd serve winning 10/15. Both were aggressive and tried to shorten the points hence it lasted only 33 minutes.

The 3rd set was a proper battle between the two of them. Muguruza was better early on and nearly broke her opponent but Brady held on. For the rest of the set, the Dubai crowd got to see a lot of good tennis. The key moment came on Muguruza's serve when Brady took the 2nd match point she was given to win 6-4.

Muguruza served better in the end but Brady was just better from the baseline. With this victory, she joins Rybakina in the Semifinal at the Dubai Duty Free Championship.

https://twitter.com/WTA/status/1230497990235713536