Caroline Garcia, 35th player in the world, qualified for the quarter-finals of the Cincinnati tournament on Thursday, the last big rehearsal on hard court before the US Open, beating the Belgian Elise Mertens in two sets (6-4, 7-5 ).
The French had not reached such a stage of competition in the WTA 1000 for four years.
This victory should also allow him to climb further in the world rankings, and could ensure him a seeded status at the New York Grand Slam (August 29-September 11).
After qualifying, Garcia had already achieved the fine performance of beating world number 3 Maria Sakkari in the previous round.
At the end of July, she had already offered the scalp of the world number 1 Iga Swiatek in Warsaw.
After having started the game badly by losing his entry service, Garcia, trailing 3-1, quickly recovered, winning the next five games, leaving only one more for his opponent to win the first. set in 44 minutes.
In the second set, doubling her aggressiveness in the exchanges, the Frenchwoman was close to concluding easily, but let the nervousness win her when serving for the victory of the game, leaving Mertens to pick up at 5-5 while she was down 5-2.
“
Heat stroke
” without consequence
“
I'm really solid in the first part of the second set.
But at 5-2, I got quite tense.
She was super aggressive, she took the ball super early, changing the direction of play each time.
At 5-5, I save a break point.
It was very important to be ahead at 6-5.
And there we had to go.
I knew it was not her who would give me
the match, Garcia then explained to L'Équipe.
The 28-year-old Frenchwoman, who is experiencing a nice upturn this summer after years of irregular results and who has already won two titles in two months (Bad Homburg and Warsaw), has indeed been able to manage this difficult moment well to finally win. after 1h47 of match.
“
It was not at all the same conditions as the other days, it was very hot and very humid.
At one point, with the tension, I had a heatstroke, but it went pretty well physically
, ”she said again.
To win her place in the semi-finals, Garcia will be opposed to Jessica Pegula (N.8), whom she dominated at the start of the year in Sydney.
The American eliminated 7-5, 6-3 the Briton Emma Raducanu (N.13), winner of the US Open last year, who had just dismissed Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka unceremoniously.
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