What a fight! The German tennis hope Eva Lys reached the quarter-finals of the WTA tournament in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, on Thursday evening after a tough fight against Jacqueline Cristian. However, the 21-year-old native of Ukraine has never been able to reach a semi-final at a WTA event.
After her surprisingly confident 6:3-6:3 win against number one seed Sorana Cirstea (number 26 in the world rankings), Lys had a lot more trouble in the round of 16 with Cirstea’s Romanian compatriot Cristian (number 97 in the world rankings).
At 2:6, 7:5 and 6:2, Lys was on the court for more than 2:30 hours and even fended off a match point in the second round when the score was 4:5 and Cristian was serving. An initial spark for the German game, which then only wobbled in the first game of the last set and then turned things around in their favor.
The statistics show how close the game was. Over the entire game, Cristian was able to score 105 points, two more than the DTB talent. With six breaks, Lys also managed just one more than her opponent.
“I gave it my all out there today. Goodnight,” Lys said on the short message service X shortly after her victory. It will be interesting to see how much the efforts will affect the rest of the tournament. Lys has to compete again on Friday evening. The opponent is the Russian Ekaterina Makarova (number 213 in the world rankings).
German semi-finals possible in Romania
The 27-year-old, who was also one of the surprises in Cluj-Napoca and had already fought her way through qualification, had to go over three sets in her two games in the main draw and therefore spent even more time on the court than Lys.
By the way, the winner in the semi-final is Tamara Korpatsch, who booked her ticket to the round of the last four with a three-set win against the Ukrainian Daria Snigur (3:6, 6:2, 6:4) on Friday.