Zaragoza, Apr 13 (EFE).- The French Chloe Pequet has been the protagonist of the great surprise of the round of 16 of the I Challenge Ibercaja Ciudad de Zaragoza by prevailing in a very even match against the number one seed, the Montenegrin Danka Kovinic, who has traced the initial set.
More than three hours (3h 01m) it took Pequet (189 in the WTA ranking) to overcome Kovinic in three sets (3-6, 6-4 and 7-5), in the longest match of these round of 16.
The victory of the Dutch Arantxa Rus was also a relative surprise after clearly beating the Russian Anastasya Pavlyuchenkova in two sets (6-2 and 6-3).
Rus has never given up her serve to a rival like Pavluychenkova who has shown on the SD Tiro de Pichón court that she still has a long way to go in her recovery to the top of the WTA rankings.
Pavluychenkova was grateful before her brief stay in the Aragonese capital, with a win and a loss, for giving her the opportunity “after a very complicated year with injuries. After so many months, doubts appear, not only physical but also mental”.
In their respective matches, the Czech Tereza Martincova and the Serbian Natalija Stevanovic have resolved their respective matches against Ksenia Zaytseva (6-4 and 7-6) and Margaux Rouvroy (7-5 and 7-6) in sudden death in the second round. ).
The Irene Burillo from Zaragoza has once again taken advantage of the invitation to the tournament and with her victory against Andrea Lázaro (6-4 and 6-2) she is already in the quarterfinals.
The eighth seed, the French Jessika Ponchet, beat the Hong Kong Adithya Karunaratne 7-5, 6-2.
The Spanish Leyre Romero also accesses the quarterfinals (7-5 and 6-0) after taking an even first set and solving the second on the fast track against the French Oceane Dodin.
The last round of 16 match between the number 2 seed, the Bulgarian Viktoriya Tomova and the Croatian Ana Konjuh.