Serena Williams
will take on Naomi Osaka for the first time since the controversial 2018 US
Open final in the quarter-finals of the Rogers Cup.
Oskaka won her first Grand Slam in New York in September but the match was marred by an on-court argument between wiliams and the chair umpire
The American beat Ekaterina
Alexandrova 7-5 6-4 in Toronto, while Japan’s Osaka won 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 against
Iga Swiatek.
“I’ve actually been looking
forward to playing her,” said Williams.
Of 21-year-old world number two
Osaka, who also won the Australian Open in January, she added: “She has
had a great year early in the season and she’s still doing pretty good.”
World number 10 Williams – a
three-time Rogers Cup winner – went a double break down early on against
Russian Alexandrova, and dropped the first three games before battling back
with two breaks of her own.
The 37-year-old 23-time Grand Slam
champion went on to wrap up the opening set, though was forced to wait until
her fourth set point after spurning her opportunities at 5-4 up.
She once again got off to a poor start
in the second set by being broken in the first game but levelled at 3-3 and
went on to seal with another break as Alexandrova was made to pay for her 11
double faults in the match.
“She hit really, really hard and
she was hitting a lot of winners,” said Williams. “So I was just
happy that I was able to fight through that.”
Meanwhile, defending champion Simona Halep also progressed
to the quarter-finals, beating Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-2 6-1 in one hour seven
minutes.
Romanian fourth seed Halep, who won her
second Grand Slam at Wimbledon in July, will play Czech Marie Bouzkova.
Elsewhere, Czech third seed Karolina
Pliskova beat Estonia’s Anett Kontaveit 6-3 7-5 to set up a
last-eight meeting with Canadian Bianca
Andreescu, while Ukraine’s Elina
Svitolina and American Sofia
Kenin also progressed.
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