Tennis: Uchijima's Madrid Open run ends with q'final loss to Svitolina
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japanese tennis player Moyuka Uchijima's surprise run at the Madrid Open ended in the quarterfinals Wednesday with a 6-2, 6-1 loss to Elina Svitolina of Ukraine.
The 56th-ranked Uchijima stunned former world No. 2 Ons Jabeur of Tunisia in round two and current No. 3 Jessica Pegula of the United States in round three of the WTA 1000 tournament, which was impacted by the Iberian power outage on Monday.
The 23-year-old Uchijima, whose father is Japanese and mother is Malaysian, said she was "more surprised than anyone" by her breakout tournament.
Having battled to an opening-round win in the Spanish capital, Uchijima said she received "a (tactical) clue" on how to handle the high bounce off the clay court from Japanese men's star Kei Nishikori after they happened to cross paths at the event.
She showed tenacity in long rallies to overcome Jabeur 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 before powering past Pegula 6-3, 6-2. An unexpected delay caused by the outage did not stop her either, as she saw off world No. 22 Ekaterina Alexandrova from Russia 6-4, 7-6(5) to reach the last eight.
While she was beaten convincingly by former world No. 3 Svitolina, currently 17th, Uchijima has remained on an upward trajectory after securing her first win at a Grand Slam and appearing at the Paris Olympics last season.
"I've managed to climb over the wall," said Uchijima after going toe-to-toe with the top opponents. "I want to target winning at this level all the time."
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