Victoria Mboko saved match point in an all-teenage Qatar TotalEnergies Open third round to score her first win over Mirra Andreeva, reversing the result of the Adelaide final to advance to her second WTA 1000 quarterfinal. 10 seed Victoria Mboko reversed the result of January's Adelaide final to defeat No. 5 seed Mirra Andreeva 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(5) in 2 hours and 10 minutes for the first time. Andreeva held one match point at 5-4 in the third set, but squandered it with a double fault. The result was 19-year-old Mboko's third career Top 10 win, and she advances to her second career WTA 1000 quarterfinal following her surprise run to last year's Montreal title. She also becomes the second player this year to win from match point down twice, joining Magdalena Frech -- Mboko also saved two match points against Anna Kalinskaya in the Adelaide second round, winning that contest 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(6). Mboko has now won 13 of her past 14 three-set matches since the final round of Wimbledon qualifying last year, where she missed five match points and fell to Priscilla Hon 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-1. Following that tournament, her only loss in a deciding set has come against Elise Mertens at the United Cup in January. 2 seed Elena Rybakina or Zheng Qinwen next in Doha. Here's how a riveting contest played out in each set. Keeping her point construction simple but effective, she slammed the ball from side to side with both power and consistency. She also won a significant mental battle to claim the set. Once again, she leapt out to 3-0, but found herself pegged back to 3-3 as Andreeva began mixing up her play. But this time, Mboko halted her opponent's momentum. At 3-3, she staved off two break points and found two consecutive forehand winners to escape with the crucial hold. Andreeva had enjoyed limited success by deploying slices and drop shots in the first set, but in the second she began to throw the kitchen sink at Mboko. She saved four break points for an important hold in the opening game, the fourth of those with a drop shot-pass combination. In the very next game, she came up with a brilliant point construction -- two moonballs, followed by a double-handed drop shot from above shoulder height and then a winning lob -- en route to breaking. Boxed in by Andreeva's variety, Mboko's ability to find openings was limited -- and though she was only drawn into 11 unforced errors in the second set, her winner count was reduced to eight. The early stages saw a series of magnificent exchanges as they tried to out-manoeuvre each other, with Andreeva capturing the first break for 2-1 but immediately getting pegged back. Perhaps most impressively, Mboko rose to the challenge of Andreeva's variety, sending it back with creativity of her own and patiently going toe-to-toe in the extended rallies. "I didn't really have a specific tactic against her," Mboko explained afterwards. I think she forced me to hit those [slices and spins]. At 4-4, Mboko coughed up a pair of double faults to concede her serve -- only for Andreeva to repay the favor in the next game, missing a match point with a double fault of her own. Though Mboko's backhand let her down on her first two match points, she continued to trust in that shot -- and closed out her third match point with an inside-out winner from that wing, her 38th of the day. "I think we both were pretty tired when it came to the tiebreak. Victoria Mboko saved match point in an all-teenage Qatar TotalEnergies Open third round to score her first win over Mirra Andreeva, reversing the result of the Adelaide final to advance to her second WTA 1000 quarterfinal.
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In which victory did the former No. 3 player in the PIF ATP Rankings play his best tennis? “I have to say, playing Roger [Federer] in the semis of the US Open was an unreal level. Also, Rafa [Nadal] at the Australian Open,” Cilic said. “A few of those matches were just something at the top.” Cilic earned one of his two Lexus ATP Head2Head triumphs against Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Australian Open. Not only did Cilic never beat Federer again, but he took advantage of the opportunity he earned by beating Kei Nishikori for his lone major title. “And just also playing by instinct, being free, playing by the instinct and everything is flowing beautifully. You May Also Like: Cilic joins Djokovic as only active players with 600 wins Ironically, the match after Cilic's victory against Learner Tien Tuesday in Dallas was between Alex Michelsen and Grigor Dimitrov. Michelsen's coach, Kristof Vliegen, was Cilic's opponent in his first ATP Tour match more than 20 years ago. And just preparing for the match, no nerves,” Cilic said. “But when we started the warm-up during the match and the announcer announced me in front of a packed stadium in Croatia, I got such a great welcome and a great applause there. Cilic vividly remembers the conditions that day in his home country, where he competed on the ATP Tour aged 16. “We were playing in the brutal heat of Umag and I still remember that it was one of the most difficult days as a youngster,” Cilic said. “Definitely, but he is too far ahead,” Cilic said, cracking a laugh. “It's such a credit to the longevity we had in our careers and so many years on the Tour. “You have some difficult moments, going through many things. Get official marketing communications from the ATP and WTA! No part of this site may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way or by any means (including photocopying, recording or storing it in any medium by electronic means), without the written permission of ATP Tour, Inc..
Lucky loser Elisabetta Cocciaretto scored her third career Top 10 win and advanced to the last 16 of a WTA 1000 event for the first time with a straight-sets upset of Coco Gauff at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open -- and revealed afterwards that her friendship with Sofia Goggia, the women's downhill bronze medallist at the Winter Olympics this week, has been an inspiration to her. Lucky loser Elisabetta Cocciaretto scored her third Top 10 win -- and first outside a Grand Slam -- with a 6-4, 6-2 upset of No. 4 seed Coco Gauff in the Qatar TotalEnergies Open second round. But despite posting one of the best results of her career, Cocciaretto admitted in her on-court interview that her attention isn't wholly on the tennis this week. After all, the Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games are currently being held in her home country. "Well, I think this week is a little bit different for us in Italy," she said. Afterwards, Cocciaretto explained that she'd been glued to the downhill skiing races all week. Ahead of her first-round match against Elsa Jacquemot, she'd been cheering on her friend Sofia Goggia, who took the bronze medal in Sunday's women's event. Cocciaretto and Goggia had met through their mutual clothing sponsor, Emporio Armani. "Now we are in contact," she said. She gives me a lot of advice." Cocciaretto has never skied herself -- her parents forbade it as too dangerous when she was younger -- but her coach Fausto Scolari hails from the Alpine town of Sondrio, and he's taught her to appreciate the sport. Indeed, Cocciaretto calls downhill skiers her "idols". "I love how they approach the sport," she said. So I tried to not put that limit on myself, and go there and have maybe a mentality of a champion." With her game style of holding her baseline and taking the ball as early as possible, Cocciaretto signalled her aggressive intent throughout an opening set in which she fired 10 winners to Gauff's four. 57 made her move at 2-2, standing inside the baseline on return and reeling off a series of superb groundstrokes to break. Keeping her lead wasn't straightforward, but Cocciaretto came up with resilient tennis in the clutch. Gauff pegged her back to 3-3, but Cocciaretto broke again courtesy of the best point of the match -- a 33-stroke lungbuster in which both players ran each other ragged, before Cocciaretto was able to finally bust through the Gauff defenses with a backhand. She then saved a break point in each of her next service games, and converted her fourth set point with one of her most reliable weapons -- the crosscourt backhand. There was less tension in the second set. Cocciaretto broke immediately with another crosscourt backhand winner and cruised to the finishing line as Gauff's unforced error tally rose to 39. "I tried to be a little bit more passive, but playing with more shape, and she was just taking the ball early and crushing the ball. I think I need to figure out how to play against players like her who hit super flat and take everything pretty much early. Cocciaretto surging in 2026: Cocciaretto's previous Top 10 wins had come over Petra Kvitova at Roland Garros 2023 and Jessica Pegula at Wimbledon 2025, but she had not won a set from Gauff in three previous professional meetings. However, she did have a junior win over the American to draw on, having defeated her 2-6, 6-2, 6-2 at the Australian Open in 2018. She still remembers every detail of it, too -- from her fellow Italians joking about her unlucky draw to the game plan she used to win. The result continues Cocciaretto's stellar season so far -- one in which she has used the qualifying rounds as a springboard to success. This week, she fell in the final round of qualifying to Varvara Gracheva, but entered the main draw as a lucky loser following McCartney Kessler's withdrawal. The 25-year-old will next face another American, Ann Li, with a maiden WTA 1000 quarterfinal at stake for both players. Lucky loser Elisabetta Cocciaretto scored her third career Top 10 win and advanced to the last 16 of a WTA 1000 event for the first time with a straight-sets upset of Coco Gauff at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open -- and revealed afterwards that her friendship with Sofia Goggia, the women's downhill bronze medallist at the Winter Olympics this week, has been an inspiration to her.