MOSCOW, January 11. /TASS/. Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova defeated on Monday World’s No. 5 Elina Svitolina of Ukraine in the quarterfinals of the WTA (Women's Tennis Association) tournament in Abu Dhabi.

In a match that lasted 2 hours and 35 minutes, the 23-year-old Russian overpowered her 2nd-seed opponent Svitolina in three sets with the final score of 5-7; 6-3; 7-6 (7-3).

"It was a really tough match," the official website of the tournament quoted Kudermetova as saying after the match. "I think we both played very good. I tried to stay focused until the end. In the first set, I also played not bad, but I didn’t have a lot of chances, Elina played unbelievable."

"She had good serves today," the Russian tennis player continued. "I tried to fight, I tried to stay focused, and do everything for the win."

"I tried to play aggressive, because you know Elina, she has such good defense. If you want to win, you need to attack, you need to go to the net, finish the point, because she runs unbelievably. You need to do something aggressive to win the points," she added.

Kudermetova is currently No. 46 in the WTA Rankings and her best result at the Grand Slam tournaments was reaching Round 3 of the 2019 French Open.

The Russian tennis player is now set to meet in the semifinals with Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine. The 18-year-old Ukrainian tennis player managed earlier in the day to come back from a scoreless first set and defeat Sara Sorribes Tormo of Spain 0-6, 6-1, 6-4.

The other semifinals match will pit Greek tennis player Maria Sakkari against World’s No. 10 Aryna Sabalenka.

The 2021 Abu Dhabi Women's Tennis Open is the first WTA tournament this year. It is played on outdoor hard courts between January 6 and 13 at the Zayed Sports City International Tennis Centre in Abu Dhabi. The tournament offers $565,530 in prize money.