Svitolina steamrolls Mladenovic en route to Chicago semis, Kasatkina falls

Elina Svitolina produced a ruthless performance as the top seed blitzed Kristina Mladenovic to advance to the Chicago Women’s Open semi-finals.

Mladenovic was no match for Svitolina, who steamrolled the seventh seed 6-1, 6-0 in under an hour at the WTA 250 tournament on Thursday.

Ukraine’s Svitolina reeled off the last 11 games of the match to set up a semi-final clash with Rebecca Peterson. The Swede moved through after Tereza Martincova retired hurt when Peterson was leading 7-6 (7-4), 2-6, 4-1.

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Tennis Majors

French ninth seed Alize Cornet rallied past fifth seed Marketa Vondrousova 2-6, 6-4, 6-3, while eighth seed Marta Kostyuk won the first set 7-6 (7-4) but trailed Varvara Gracheva 5-3 in the second before the match was suspended due to darkness. That match will resume on Friday with the winner taking on Cornet later in the day.

Top seed Kasatkina upset in Cleveland

At WTA Tennis in the Land event in Cleveland, top seed Daria Kasatkina was upstaged by Magda Linette 6-1, 6-2 in the quarter-finals.

Second seed Anett Kontaveit survived 6-3, 5-7, 6-2 against Katerina Siniakova, while seventh seed Sara Sorribes Tormo also won through to set up a semi-final clash against Kontaveit. The Spanish woman scored a 6-3, 6-1 win over Shuai Zhang.

Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu also reached the last four with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Aliaksandra Sasnovich and will meet Linette next.

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Tennis Majors