MOSCOW, January 11. /TASS/. Russian tennis player Yekaterina Alexandrova reached the semifinals of the 2024 Women's Tennis Association (WTA) Adelaide International tennis tournament after defeating Kazakhstan’s Yelena Rybakina on Thursday.
The unseeded Alexandrova defeated top-seed Rybakina in straight sets 6-3; 6-3 and is now set to face off in the semifinals against Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko, who beat Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk 7-5; 6-3 earlier .
In another quarterfinals match earlier in the day, Jessica Pegula of the United States defeated Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-7; 7-5; 6-4 and the US player will meet another Russian player, Daria Kasatkina, in the semifinals.
Kasatkina reached the semifinals of the tournament after her quarterfinals opponent Laura Siegemund from Germany decided to withdraw before the match started.
All time, Alexandrova leads Ostapenko 5-3 in their head-to-head matchups, although two of her victories came after the Latvian player retired.
According to the WTA official website: "The pair have only played twice on outdoor hard courts before, both times in Seoul. Alexandrova won both of those in straights, in the 2018 second round and the 2022 final."
Alexandrova, 29, is currently ranked 21st in the WTA Rankings and has four WTA tournament titles under her belt. To date, her best result in Grand Slams was in 2023, when she reached the fourth round of Wimbledon. She is also the winner of the 2021 Billie Jean King Cup.
Kasatkina, 26, is currently ranked 15th in the WTA Rankings and has six WTA tournament titles to her name. To date, her best result in Grand Slams was in 2022 when she reached the semifinals of the French Open. She was also part of the same Russian team that won the 2021 Billie Jean King Cup.
The Adelaide International is a WTA 500 tennis tournament, which first took place in 2020. It is played on outdoor hard courts. This year, the tournament runs from January 8-13 and offers a purse of over $922,570 in prize money. Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic is the tournament’s reigning champion, but she is skipping this year’s competition.
Russian players’ neutral status at tennis tournaments
On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments, citing Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine as the reason.
Following the IOC’s recommendations in late February 2022, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.
The International Tennis Federation (ITF) ruled on March 1, 2022 to suspend the membership of the Russian and Belarusian national tennis federations while also cancelling all previously scheduled tennis tournaments in the two countries.
On March 14, 2022, the ITF also confirmed its prohibition of the Russian and Belarusian national tennis teams from the 2022 Davis Cup and 2022 Billie Jean King Cup.
However, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) allowed tennis players from Russia and Belarus to continue participating in WTA and ATP tournaments, but only under a neutral status.