Exhilarating lawn tennis from Andrea Petkovic

On the 53rd birthday of Steffi Graf, of all people, the patron of the bett1open 2022, Andrea Petkovic presented herself with a grandiose surprise coup that swept the spectators off their feet.

Petkovic defeated former Wimbledon winner Garbine Muguruza (Spain) in an exhilarating match 7:6 (10:8) and 6:4. “I really wanted to stay longer in Berlin”, she said laughing on the grass of the Steffi-Graf-Stadion. As a result, she is through to the Round of 16 of the WTA 500 tournament, which is endowed with 757,000 US Dollars, at the LTTC “Rot-Weiß” facility.

With the performance she showed against Muguruza, she also has a chance against sixth seed Aliaksandra Sasnovich in Berlin. Petkovic has rarely played such great grass court tennis as she did against Muguruza. The crowd gave her a standing ovation. The tie break in the first set was a battle of nerves, which Petkovic won 10:8. Afterwards, she seemed even more stable than Muguruza. It was Petkovic’s first success on grass against a top-20 player in her professional career, which has been running since 2006!

Another German, Jule Niemeier, also put in a strong performance as an outsider - but unlike Petkovic , she was not rewarded for it. Niemeier lost to Belinda Bencic, the Olympic champion from Switzerland, 4:6, 7:5, 3:6. Nevertheless ended Niemeier showed good grass court tennis and can look forward with hope to Wimbledon, where she will qualify directly for the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in her career.

Maria Sakkara (Greece), seeded second in Berlin had no trouble in her two-set win (6:3, 6:2) against Leolia Jeanjean (France). Anna Kalinskaya defeated Alize Cornet (France; 6:4, 6:4) in a similarly convincing manner and will now face Belinda Bencic, who defeated Niemeier. Qualifier Alycia Parks (USA) earned a match with bett1open number one seed Ons Jabeur with her win (6:3, 7:6) over Qinwen Zheng (China). Jabeur (Tunisia) won the last match of the day without any problems with 6:3, 6:3 against Karolina Muchova (Czech Republic). This also pleased a delegation from the Tunisian embassy, who used the bett1open to meet Jabeur, an absolute superstar in the North African country.

Sabine Lisicki was also in a good mood. The local hero thrilled alongside Bianca Andreescu (Canada). As doubles they won 7:5 and 6:4 against the Chinese double Yang Zhaoxuan/ Xu Yifan.

On Wednesday, matches start at 11am - with some great pairings on the schedule! After the Round of 16 between Karolina Pliskova and Bianca Andreescu, superstar Coco Gauff will enter the tournament in the US duel against Ann Li. At the same time, the round of 16 between Daria Kasatkina and Ekaterina Alexandrova will be played on Court 1.

Coco Gauffs awaited appearance will be followed by two more matches in round of 16: Andrea Petkovic against Aliaksandra Sasnovich and Daria Saville (Australien) against Maria Sakkara.

Just the right thing for our “LADIES DAY” at the bett1open! On Wednesday, there will be a 20 percent discount for all ladies on the tickets for the Steffi Graf Stadium.