Rezai resurgence continues at Shrewsbury

Aravane Rezai continued her resurgence in form at the AEGON GB Pro-Series Shrewsbury at The Shrewsbury Club on Wednesday, claiming a straightforward 6-4, 6-3 second round win over Ana Vrljic of Croatia in the women’s singles event.

The Frenchwoman said afterwards: “It wasn’t as hard as yesterday, I played pretty good today. I’ve been very aggressive during the match. She’s been great today, she’s been playing very well but I keep fighting on the court and trying to be as aggressive as I could and that’s why the score is not that tough.”

In the quarter-finals on Thursday Rezai will meet German fifth seed Annika Beck after she beat Marta Domachowska 4-6, 6-1, 6-3.

Rezai gave her thoughts on facing the German: “She’s playing pretty good, she’s won two matches. She’s also confident like me, returning all the balls in, not making many mistakes and I will try to push her to make more mistakes tomorrow and we’ll see what happens.”

Elsewhere, like Beck, Stefanie Voegele also needed three sets for victory, defeating Vesna Dolonc of Serbia 6-4, 1-6, 6-2.

The third seed, now the highest seed remaining in the draw said afterwards: “It was a good match. Good first set, she played better in the second set and I had some chances which I didn’t take and then third set I played good.”

In her quarter-final Voegele will meet Cagla Buyukakcay of Turkey who upset the sixth seed Nastassja Burnett of Italy 6-2, 6-1. Voegele continued: “I’ll just try to play my game like today and we’ll see. I like it here. I came four years ago, the town and the tournament are very nice.”

There was disappointment for Britain’s Johanna Konta as she fell 7-5, 1-6, 6-3 to Julie Coin of France, and Coin will go on to meet Ekaterina Bychkova after the Russian surprised second seed Karolina Pliskova with a 6-3, 6-4 scoreline.

The other quarter-final will see Marta Sirotkina of Russia against Dutchwoman Bibiane Schoofs after they both came through round two in contrasting fashion, Sirotkina winning after Seateun (FRA) retired at 1-4 in the first set and Schoofs battling to a 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 victory against Maria Koehler (POR) [4].

In the doubles the top seeded Pliskova twins reached the semi-finals beating the British combination of Konta & Amanda Elliott 6-2, 7-6(2), and they will now play Coin & Vrljic who won 6-1, 2-6, 10-6 over British/Irish duo Lucy Brown & Amy Bowtell.

The second semi-final will see the No.2 seeds Dolonc & Voegele, who beat Domachowska & Sandra Klemenschits (GER) 6-4, 6-1, play No.3 seeds Koehler & Sirotkina after the latter pair beat Britain’s Sam Murray & Emily Webley-Smith 6-3,7-6(5) in the quarter-fianls.

On Thursday play starts at 10.30am and entry is free to spectators