World No. 29 Karolina Muchova and seventh-seeded Anna Kalinskaya are set to meet in the quarterfinal of the WTA 500 tournament in Ningbo after clinching straight-set wins on Thursday.
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The Czech, who destroyed Jaqueline Cristian 6-1 6-3 in Beijing earlier this month, met the Romanian again and claimed another dominant win. This time, the scoreline was 6-2 6-1 in the 2023 French Open finalist's favor.
On the other side, the Russian tennis star overcame Yuan Yue 6-3 6-3.
Since Muchova is still building up her ranking after returning from a long injury break, she is not seeded in Ningbo. And because of that, she and Kalinskaya are set to meet earlier than they would probably in this kind of tournament.
On Friday, they will meet for the third time. In the past, the Czech earned a three-set win at an ITF tournament in 2018 before sealing a two-set victory in their 2020 US Open clash.
How Muchova, Kalinskaya won their Ningbo round-of-16 matches?
The former world No. 7 wasted no time on the court, collecting back-to-back breaks to open a very comfortable 4-0 lead before closing out the opener in the eighth game.
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At the start of the second set, the Czech claimed a break but got broken back instantly in the second game. However, Muchova remained laser-focused and won the next five games to complete her pretty dominant triumph.
Meanwhile, Kalinskaya dropped the opening two games of the match but still routinely won the first set after responding with breaks in the third, fifth and ninth games.
Up by a set, the No. 7 seed also broke Yue in the sixth game of the second set to go 4-2 up.
While Kalinskaya missed out on three consecutive match points on the Chinese's serve in the eighth game, she managed to get the job done in the following game after converting her fifth match point.
