{"id":66183,"date":"2021-05-01T21:42:21","date_gmt":"2021-05-01T21:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=66183"},"modified":"2021-05-01T23:02:06","modified_gmt":"2021-05-01T23:02:06","slug":"barty-sets-up-clash-of-champions-at-madrid-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=66183","title":{"rendered":"Barty sets up clash of champions at Madrid Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ashleigh Barty and Iga Swiatek, the two most recent champions of the French Open, will meet in the last 16 of the Madrid Open<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They won their second-round matches on Saturday to set up the first-time meeting.<\/p>\n

"(It's) a match that I look forward to," Barty said about Monday's meeting with Swiatek. "I've hit with her once in Melbourne a few months ago. She's got a seriously impressive game. <\/p>\n

"It's a challenge that we go into with a really clean slate, a little bit of a period of trying to figure each other out, and how our games match up."<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Barty won the French Open in 2019, and Swiatek last year in Barty's absence.<\/p>\n

The top-ranked Barty needed three sets to beat 80th-ranked Tamara Zidansek. Barty struggled with her first serves, but she compensated by striking nine aces and saved nine break points to outlast Zidansek 6-4 1-6 6-3. That took her win streak on clay to 13 matches after claiming the Stuttgart title last week.<\/p>\n

"A really tough match," Barty said. "(I) made a lot of errors. I think I was missing in the right way, but still just a foot or two here or there makes a big difference. I felt like there were probably too many loose ones for me today."<\/p>\n

Swiatek brushed aside Laura Siegemund 6-3 6-3 for the Pole's ninth win in a row on clay.<\/p>\n

Three-time Madrid champion Petra Kvitova also advanced after she beat Angelique Kerber 6-4 7-5 in another battle of Grand Slam winners.<\/p>\n

Kerber broke Kvitova's serve to start both sets. But the Czech canceled the advantage right back and then broke Kerber's serve to close it out.<\/p>\n

"I don't think that I really played like bad games when she broke my serve," Kvitova said. "It was kind of important to stay calm, which I did very well I think, through the whole match. I just took her straight away back."<\/p>\n

Also, Ons Jabeur came from behind to beat Sloane Stephens 4-6 6-1 6-3.<\/p>\n

Anastasija Sevastova defeated Johanna Konta 6-3 6-3, while Veronika Kudermetova beat Kiki Bertens 6-4 6-3, and Paula Badosa fought back to eliminate Jil Teichmann 5-7 6-1 6-2.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ashleigh Barty and Iga Swiatek, the two most recent champions of the French Open, will meet in the last 16 of the Madrid Open. They […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66183"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66185,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66183\/revisions\/66185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}