Sorribes resists against Kasatkina and reaches the quarterfinals

I was number two in the world, Paula Badosaand was the number number nine, Garbiñe Muguruza, in the Magic Box resists a rock: Sara Sorribes. The Castellón native (47th in the world) reached quarterfinals of the Mutua Madrid Open after beating Daria Kasatkina (23rd) 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 in 2:31.

A ceiling, the quarterfinals, that the Castellón native has never exceeded in a category 1,000 tournament (reached that round in 2021 in Miami and Montreal). A ceiling, moreover, that in Madrid only Badosa broke last year reaching the semifinals. Carla Suárez fell on the border of the quarterfinals in 2015 and 2018 and Anabel Medina in 2013.

He raises his fist and looks defiantly at his box, occupied by Silvia Soler and Paco Fogués, Sorribes. A tennis player with the soul of a marathon runner. A worker who has already left the 15th in the world on the way, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova; a Naomi Osakachampion of four Grand Slams and now the Russian Kasatkina, 23rd in the ranking and former top ten.

The match was won from the rest, because with the serve none was fine (nine breaks for the Spanish and nine for the Russian trained by the Spanish Carlos Martínez). In the first set, five breaks for Sorribes and four for Kasatkina. In the second, characterized by long exchanges with a pattern that is seen less and less on clay, the Russian stepped on the accelerator and matched the clash. The inertia allowed him to also get an entry break in the third. But Sorribes did not give up and turned the clash with a claw.

“There hasn’t been a moment where I thought I had it (victory). It’s the toughest tactical game I’ve ever played in my life. In the second set my head hurt from thinking so much.”told the Spanish at the foot of the track, and that tomorrow she will seek a place in the semifinals against Jessica Pegula or Bianca Andreescu.

Sara is willing to continue resisting, happy this week with her family in the stands. And how far does she plan to go? “I don’t know anything, I just know that I want to work, that I like what I do and that I try to enjoy myself on the track every day”.