Iga Swiatek booked her spot in a second straight Mutua Madrid Open final on Thursday, the world No. 1 knocking out Madison Keys, 6-1, 6-3 in the semifinals. Swiatek led Keys 2-1 in their head-to-head but lost their most recent match at the 2022 Cincinnati Open; playing on a decidedly slower surface, the three-time Roland Garros champion made quick work of Keys, seeded eighteenth, to avenge the defeat and reach her 11th WTA 1000 final since 2021 in 70 minutes on Manolo Santana Stadium. ...
Jiri Lehecka beat up on Rafael Nadal in the Round of 16 at the Mutua Madrid Open. The Czech earned a 7-5, 6-4 win in the match, putting on a masterful display as a server and absolutely pummeling shots from the baseline. Nadal didn’t even play all that poorly, but Lehecka can play breathtaking tennis when he’s at his very best. That’s exactly what we saw on Tuesday. The 22-year-old will now look to build on that performance when he takes on world No. 4 Daniil Medvedev in the quarterfinals. And...
Elena Rybakina pulled off an incredible comeback to extend her clay-court win streak at the 2024 Mutua Madrid Open, saving two match points to outlast fellow Kazakh Yulia Putintseva, 4-6, 7-6 (4), 7-5. Rybakina had never beaten Putintseva in two previous encounters but roared back from 5-2 down in the final set to deny her rival a first WTA 1000 semifinal and win an eighth straight match in just under three hours on Manolo Santana Stadium. Rybakina established herself as one of the players to...
Madison Keys lost the first eight games of her Mutua Madrid Open quarterfinal Tuesday. Her opponent, Ons Jabeur, was coming off a comprehensive win over Jelena Ostapenko that also included an opening bagel set. When Keys finally got on the scoreboard, she raised her arms in triumph. The moment foreshadowed the beginning of a terrific 0-6, 7-5, 6-1 comeback victory over the 2022 champion. “The key was to get a game,” Keys said with a smile during a post-match interview with WTA. “Once I did...
Carlos Alcaraz kept his Caja Magica streak alive at the 2024 Mutua Madrid Open, defeating Jan-Lennard Struff, 6-3, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (4) in a rematch of the 2023 final to reach the quarterfinals. The former world No. 1 has won the title in Madrid for the last two years, and continued to shake off injury concerns—and a second-set blip—to win a 14th straight match and defeat his German rival on his fifth match point in just under three hours on Manolo Santana Stadium. Alcaraz last faced Struff on...
On Tuesday, April 30, Rafael Nadal’s comeback tour continues with a match against Jiri Lehecka in the Mutua Madrid Open. Nadal is coming off a 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-3 win over Pedro Cachin in his last match—a 3:06 battle. It was nice to see Nadal, whose 2024 season has been shaped by health concerns, find a way through a long, physical match. However, it is a little concerning that Nadal needed to dig that deep in order to get by a player of Cachin’s caliber. And that makes it hard to believe in him...
Danielle Collins was twice a point away from serving for her fourth-round match with Aryna Sabalenka at the Mutua Madrid Open. But the defending champion found her way out of the tight spot, then turned the contest around in ending the American’s 15-match win streak, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, as the match wrapped well past midnight Tuesday. The crucial swing in the clash came with Sabalenka serving at 3-4 in the second set. Having seen a 40-15 lead evaporate, the world No. 2 seed soon faced break point...
Rafael Nadal’s farewell tour is picking up steam at the 2024 Mutua Madrid Open: the 22-time Grand Slam champion survived an epic with Pedro Cachin, 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-3 to reach his first Masters 1000 fourth round in two years. Nadal, who is likely hanging up his racquets after Laver Cup in September, backed up a big win over Alex de Minaur and has now racked up three consecutive wins, his longest win streak since the 2022 US Open, with a three-hour, two-minute win over Cachin in three tough sets...
We’re in for an exciting All-American battle in the Round of 16 at the Mutua Madrid Open, as Madison Keys takes on world No. 3 Coco Gauff. Keys is probably at her best on grass courts, where she is 44-14 at the WTA level. But she’s also a little underrated on clay, as she is 67-44 on the dirt in her WTA career. Gauff is definitely a player with an intriguing clay-court game, and she is 38-15 on the dirt early in her WTA career. But I think Keys has the ability to give her some trouble here, so...
Danielle Collins has extended her winning streak to 15 matches in a row with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 victory over Romania's Jaqueline Cristian in the third round of the Mutua Madrid Open on Sunday. She’s now battled back from a set down to win both of her first two matches at the WTA 1000 event, having come back from 6-4, 3-1 down to defeat Serbian qualifier Olga Danilovic two nights ago, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (8). Danilovic even served for that one at 5-4 in the third. Collins wasn't in as much trouble...
Winning two matches in a row, historically, hasn't been a notable milestone for Andrey Rublev since he first debuted in the Top 10 four years ago. But, in the spring of 2024, it is. For the first time since he was defaulted in the semifinals of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships on March 1, Rublev has won two matches at a tournament this week at the Mutua Madrid Open. In Sunday's third round at the Caja Mágica, seventh-seeded Rublev defeated Spain's Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, 7-6(10),...
MATCH POINT: Danielle Collins hangs on against Olga Danilovic in Madrid for