Svitolina storms into Dubai semis to close in on top 10 breakthrough

Elina Svitolina queued up a possible breakthrough into a first-time top 10 ranking as she reached the semi-finals of the Dubai Tennis Championships yesterday with a 6-0, 6-4 defeat of Lauren Davis.
 The seventh seed, currently ranked 13th and winner of a fifth career title this month in Taipei, will line up today against either top seed Angelique Kerber or Croatian Ana Konjuh after those two meet in a quarter-final at the Aviation Club.
 Kerber can regain the WTA top ranking from Serena Williams with a trophy performance tomorrow after losing the top honour after the American won the Australian Open.
 “I’m really happy the way I started and the way I finished the match, I was being very aggressive and it worked really good,” said Svitolina. “I was calm and positive today. I’m really happy with the performance.
 “I was expecting she would do something different after losing 0-6 — it’s always tough. I was expecting her to come back to the game. I was trying to stick to my plan and stay really positive. I knew that there would be some up-and-downs, but I tried to do more, more effort from my side so I didn’t lose my focus too much.”
 Latvian Anastasija Sevastova put out the week’s last Chinese hope, defeating Wang Qiang 6-4, 7-5 as the Asian lost her first sets of the week. Sevastova will meet 10th seed Caroline Wozniacki, who saw off teenaged American CiCi Bellis.
 Wozniacki, the 2011 Dubai champion, put an end to Bellis’ dream run with a commanding 6-3, 6-2 win over the 17-year-old American. Bellis announced herself in a big way with her stunning upset of world No. 6 Agnieszka Radwanska to reach the quarterfinals, but she had no answers against her childhood idol Wozniacki.
 Earlier on Wednesday, Kerber dominated Monica Puig 6-2, 6-3 in barely an hour to move a step closer to returning to the number one ranking. The top-seeded German, who held the top WTA spot in 2016 before Serena Williams took it back in September, could regain the number one ranking if she wins the title in Dubai.
 Kerber’s victory also provided revenge against Puerto Rican Puig, who beat the 29-year-old for the Rio Olympic gold medal in August.

Raonic advances at Delray Beach
Canadian top seed Milos Raonic advanced to the quarter-finals of the ATP Delray Beach Open by defeating Croatia’s Borna Coric 6-3, 7-6 (7/2). On a night when rain delayed the start of play for more than eight hours, world number four Raonic fired 12 aces on his way to victory after 94 minutes.
 Raonic, who reached the tie-breaker with his 11th ace and reached match point with his last ace, booked a quarter-final matchup against British eighth seed Kyle Edmund, who outlasted Taiwan’s Lu Yen-Hsun 6-3, 3-6, 6-2.
 Also advancing to the last eight was US third seed Jack Sock, who downed Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-4, 6-1, and American fifth seed Steve Johnson, who eliminated Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka by the same score. Sock and Johnson will meet in another quarter-final.
 The other matchups find Argentina’s seventh-seeded Juan Martin Del Potro, in his first tournament of the year after helping his homeland win the Davis Cup, meeting Bosnia’s Damir Dzumhur.
 Two other second-round matches will be all-American affairs, with teen star Taylor Fritz facing Donald Young and fourth-seeded defending champion Sam Querrey meeting Jared Donaldson.