Italian qualifier Camila Giorgi continued her impressive form at the Eastbourne championships by removing top seed Aryna Sabalenka in the quarter-finals yesterday.
Giorgi, a quarter-finalist at Wimbledon in 2018, used her aggressive game to claim a 7-6(5) 0-6 6-4 victory and set up a semi-final against Estonian Anett Kontaveit.
Former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko is also showing impressive form ahead of Wimbledon, reaching the semi-finals with a 1-6 7-5 6-2 victory over Russia’s Daria Kasatkina,
She will face either fellow Latvian Anastasija Sevastova or Elena Rybakina in her first Tour-level semi-final since 2019.
“I get very excited, but when it starts I get very sad because it’s very short, the grass season,” former junior Wimbledon champion Ostapenko said.
“I wish it could be longer, I love to play on grass.”
Sabalenka had won her only previous meeting with Giorgi and looked on course for a comeback victory when she reeled off the second set with a flurry of winners to level the match.
The Belarusian then earned the first break of serve in the deciding set but Giorgi’s game re-ignited to claim victory.
“It was a great match and very good level,” she said. “At the end I think it was more mental than physical.”
Giorgi knocked out fifth seed Karolina Pliskova in the opening round, also in three sets, meaning it is the first time in her career that she has had two wins over top-10 players at the same tournament.
Kontaveit battled back to beat qualifier Viktorija Golubic 2-6 7-6(2) 7-5.

US Open champion Thiem out of Wimbledon with wrist injury
World number five Dominic Thiem yesterday withdrew from Wimbledon after picking up a wrist injury suffered in Mallorca this week.
“I’m really sorry for pulling out of the upcoming three tournaments I had in my calendar – Wimbledon, Hamburg and Gstaad,” the 27-year-old Austrian wrote on Twitter.
“I am determined to come back stronger.”
Thiem is the second top 10 player to pull out of Wimbledon after two-time champion Rafael Nadal said he was sitting out the tournament to rest after his French Open semi-final exit.
Wimbledon, which was cancelled last year due to the pandemic, starts at the All England Club on Monday.
Thiem has endured a tough season and has already said he will skip the Tokyo Olympics to concentrate on defending his US Open title.
He was knocked out of the French Open in the first round despite being a two-time runner-up in Paris and then had to retire from his opening match in the Mallorca grass court event on Tuesday against France’s Adrian Mannarino.
After consulting doctors in Barcelona, Thiem said he will have to wear a splint on his right wrist for the next five weeks.
“I will do everything the doctors say in order to recover as quickly as possible.”
Thiem has never got past the last 16 at Wimbledon and made first round exits on his last two visits.
The US Open, where Thiem won his only Slam in 2020, gets underway on August 30.