Suarez ends Gagliardi’s run

Gagliardi struggled to find her game against Suarez Keystone

Emmanuelle Gagliardi's impressive showing at the Italian Open tennis tournament came to an end on Thursday with a defeat to Argentina's Paola Suarez. Martina Hingis is through to the quarter-finals, though, after beating Russia's Elena Likhovtseva.

After celebrating two wins in succession for the first time since January’s Australian Open, Gagliardi saw her run come to an end against the Argentinian world number 27.

Unable to repeat Wednesday’s staggering achievement in knocking out Belgian sixth seed Kim Clijsters, the Swiss number four was bundled out by Suarez in straight sets (4-6, 2-6).

Hingis had to work surprisingly hard to avoid the same fate against the 25-year-old Likhovtseva. Struggling to find her rhythm the world number one didn’t manage to break the Russian until the ninth game of the first set.

Then, having taken that set 6-4, Hingis found herself 3-0 down in the second.

But her opponent was unable to take advantage, losing the next six games in succession to hand Hingis a 6-4, 6-3 victory.

The Swiss star is now due to face Spain’s Arantxa Sanchez in the quarter-finals of the $1.2 million clay court event. It will be the third time this year that the two have met, with all three encounters coming at the quarter-final stage.

Honours are even between the two players this season. Sanchez won their first encounter of the year at Amelia Island, but Hingis took revenge in Berlin last week.

Overall, though, Sanchez is clearly at a disadvantage when it comes to previous meetings. The Amelia Island victory marks the Spaniard’s only success against Hingis in 17 encounters. Little wonder that the Swiss star refers to Sanchez as her “favourite opponent.”

swissinfo with agencies