Singles semifinals set in Charleston

Ons Jabeur (photo by Daniel Ward)

The top three seeds are out at the Credit One Charleston Open, leaving 4th seed Ons Jabeur as the highest seed remaining. Jabeur defeated Anhelina Kalinina 6-3, 6-2 this evening; what makes that notable is that the scoreline in Jabeur's other two matches (she had a bye in the first round) was 6-3, 6-2. The 10th seed's next opponent will be 15th seed Amanda Anisimova, who defeated lucky loser Coco Vandeweghe 6-1, 6-2.

In the other semifinal, 10th seed Belinda Bencic, who upset 2nd seed Paula Badosa in an exciting quarterfinal played earlier today, will face Ekaterina Alexandrova. Alexandrova defeated Magda Linette 6-0, 6-2 in their quarterfinal match.

Linette played two three-set matches (one, a thriller) almost back-to-back yesterday, so one has to assume that she wasn't exactly fresh for her quarterfinal. Alexandrandova talked about this after this match:

"...it's always tough to play against her, but I also knew that she played yesterday like two three-set matches, and I think she finished like super late, and for her it would be extremely tough to play today. I knew that, but still, I was trying to play every single point, because I know, like you don't know when, but she can start to play like just amazingly and it will be super tough.

"The first set was quite easy for me, and I think somewhere like in the middle of the second set I started having some kind of issue. There was like a few mistakes, and she started to play much better than she played in the first set. And I knew I needed to finish it as fast as I can because I know like longer playing the better she will play."

Bencic is 2-2 against Alexandrova. The only time they played on clay, Alexandrova won. Jabeur and Anisimova have never played one another.