Two women’s singles quarterfinals in the top half of the draw are scheduled for Tuesday, January 24. WTA results are always unpredictable and we often have surprise champions, but let’s try to preview the upcoming matches and pick the favorites.
Elena Rybakina [22] vs. Jelena Ostapenko [17]
The first women’s singles quarterfinal will be contested between players who have reached this stage at the Australian Open for the first time. However, both have won Grand Slams, although not on hard courts. Elena Rybakina’s triumph at a major was more recent, at Wimbledon 2022, while Jelena Ostapenko won Roland Garros in 2017.
In the third round, the 25th-ranked Rybakina eliminated last year’s Australian Open runner-up Danielle Collins and then recorded her first win over a reigning WTA world No.1 by taking out Iga Swiatek in the round of 16. The biggest name Ostapenko faced was world No.7 Coco Gauff in the previous round.
The average rank of Ostapenko’s opponents was much lower than Rybakina’s (71 to 41) and the Latvian spent 32 minutes more on the court than the Kazakh. However, they have both dropped 30 games en route to the final eight.
Both Rybakina and Ostapenko have won titles on hard courts. Rybakina triumphed in Australia, at the 2020 Hobart International, while…
