Sofia Kenin’s impressive return to form claimed another scalp on Wednesday as the unseeded American upset sixth seed Jelena Ostapenko to reach the quarter-finals of the WTA 1000 Guadalajara Open.
Former Australian Open champion Kenin, who last reached the quarter-finals of a WTA 1000 event in 2019, booked her place in the last eight with a 6-4, 7-5 win in 1hr 44min.
Kenin’s victory came after she knocked out 12th seed Anhelina Kalinina in the second round, and follows a deep run at last week’s San Diego Open, where she finished runner-up.
Latvia’s Ostapenko, who reached the last eight of the US Open earlier this month, reeled off 36 winners to Kenin’s 19, but was left paying the price for a failure to convert break points at key moments.
Ostapenko led 3-0 in the second set, but was unable to force a decider after squandering three break points in the eighth game and six as Kenin served for the match in the 12th game of the second set.
The Moscow-born Kenin will face either Emma Navarro or Canada’s 2021 US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez in the last eight.
Kenin, 24, has gradually worked her way back to relevance on the WTA Tour after her ranking tumbled to 426 last year following a slew of injuries and upheaval in her coaching set-up.
In other matches on Wednesday, third seed Caroline Garcia of France sailed into the quarter-finals with a 7-5, 6-4 victory over Hailey Baptiste of the United States.
Second seed Maria Sakkari of Greece, meanwhile, romped into the quarter-finals with a 6-2, 6-2 dismissal of Italy’s Camila Giorgi.
But while Garcia and Sakkari advanced safely, another seed exited with eighth seed Ekaterina Alexandrova being thrashed 6-1, 6-2 by unseeded American Caroline Dolehide.
