Tokyo Olympics Ladies Tennis • Cast of Surprise Semifinalists Punch Spots in Olympics Medal Rounds – 10sBalls.com

By Thomas Cluck

The semifinals of the women’s singles at these Tokyo 2020/2021 Olympic Games are set and three of the four women still standing at this stage will leave Japan as Olympic medalists in a couple days’ time. Women’s quarterfinals took place today at the Ariake Coliseum and saw a surprising women’s draw get even more unexpected as the sole remaining Grand Slam champion, Garbine Muguruza, a two-time major winner, fell to Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina 7-5, 6-1. 

Arguably the gold medal favorite now, the most experienced player left in the draw, Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina kept her hopes alive with an impressive victory over the giantkiller of the week, Camila Giorgi of Italy, fending off the dangerous, unpredictable groundstrokes of her unseeded opponent to win 6-4, 6-4. 

Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic kept her impressive Games going with a hard-fought three-set victory over this year’s French Open runner-up Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia, winning a rollercoaster of a match 6-0, 3-6, 6-3 to book a date with Rybakina in the semis with a guaranteed Olympic gold or silver medal on the line for the winner. 

Japan’s host hope Naomi Osaka’s slayer Marketa Vondoursova of the Czech Republic saw another easy day at the office to punch her last four ticket, receiving a retirement from Spain’s Paula Badosa Gibert, one of the form players of 2021, to set up a showdown with Svitolina for the tricky lefty, the 2019 Roland Garros finalist.

Thursday will see both high-pressure women’s singles semifinals take place on Centre Court as Bencic and Rybakina start before Svitolina and Vondrousova fill the remaining spot in the highly sought after Gold Medal Match.

In the doubles, a blockbuster semifinal was set for tomorrow as well after the Czech team of 2021 French Open singles and doubles champ Barbora Krejickova and her partner Katerina Siniakova ended singles world number one and new Wimbledon champion Ashleigh Barty and Storm Sanders’ hopes for Australia with a three-set 3-6, 6-4, 10-7 win to set a date with another top team, Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova, another form player this year, and Elena Vesnina, coming back from the birth of her child. 

Editors Note • Svitolina is celebrating her Honeymoon in Tokyo. Winning Gold or a medal 🏅  would sure be a nice wedding gift.