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Julia Goerges won her third straight meeting with Natalia Vikhlyantseva, the second in Moscow when they met in the semifinal at the VTB Kremlin Cup. Since that tournament, the German registered ten wins in 11 matches as she defeated Vikhlyantseva 6-2 7-6.
After a one-sided first set, the Russian twice battled back from a break down in twice battled back from a break down in the second, as Goerges failed to serve out the match at 5-4, and forced a tiebreak. Goerges showed all her experience to dominate it 7-2 and clinch the victory with 27 winners to 11 and 18 unforced errors to 16.
She will meet 17-year-old Olga Danilovic who beat Kaia Kanepi 7-6(3) 7-5. The daughter of former NBA star Predrag, Danilovic became the first 2001-born player into a WTA quarterfinal in her first tour event. Danilovic, projected to climb approximately 90 spots in the world rankings next week, showed traw talent and massive groundstrokes, and suddenly her perspective changed after four ITF titles and four wins in 52 matches on clay since the start of 2017.
Anastasia Potapova immediately followed Danilovic as she staged a 6-4 6-4 win over Krystina Pliskova. The 2001-born Potapova will qualifier Valentyna Ivakhnenko who knocked out 7-6 6-3 Varvara Flink. Potapova completed one of her biggest career victories to punctuate the maiden edition of the Moscow River Cup.
Ranked No.204, the Russian maintained a fearless approach, a never-say-die strategy that her hard, flat groundstrokes intensified. The Czech got an early break but she found herself immediately under an intense pressure and hit two double faults in the final game of the opening set.
Potapova kept up the same high tempo in the second set and sealed the win at the fourth opportunity. Up next, Potapova will face fellow Russian Valentyna Ivakhnenko, who knocked out Varvara Flink 7-6(2) 6-3. Laura Siegemund celebrated her eight success of the season on the way back to the old form and moved into the second round after she beat Gstaad champion Alize Cornet 4-6 6-2 6-3.
The German will meet Kateryna Kozlova for the third time, as the head to head are tied at 1-1, to seal her second straight quarterfinal after she lost to Petra Martic in Bucharest. Cornet broke three times to clinch the second set but Siegemund won five games in a row from 2-2 in the second set and moved 4-1 ahead in the third en route to her third win in a deciding set in 2018.
Although the brave fighting Cornet came back at 3-4, Siegemund kept his cool in a contest that featured 15 breaks of serve. In a bad day for French fans, Pauline Parmentier suffered her seventh first-round defeat of the season as she lost to the Bucharest champion Anastasija Sevastova 6-2 3-6 7-6.
Three breaks of serve gave Parmentier a bit of relief in the second set but Sevastova built an apparently unassailable 4-1 lead in the third. The world No.70 leveled at 4-4 but Sevastova broke again and sealed the 31st win main draw win of the season with a love hold.
