Kerber d Kasatkina at Eastbourne

Quarter final day in Antalya and also in Eastbourne where a great match was witnessed between Angie Kerber (4) and Daria Kasatkina (7).

For over two hours the crowd thrilled to the shot making between the two.  Kasatkina, nine years the junior, had won three of their last four encounters, and this was the first time they would meet on grass.

Kerber smashed the Russian in set one, winning 12 of 13 points on her serve, hitting seven winners and treating the serve of Kasatkina with contempt, winning 16 of the 23 points played off it.

Facing no break points on her own serve, Angie created five on Daria’s, converting three times to win the set 6-1.

Set two was thankfully a contest.  Kerber won only 54% of points on serve, allowing Kasatkina back into the match.

The German returned the second serves of Kasatkina well and the pair exchanged two breaks each to produce a tie break.

Kasatkina, down 2-3, fired up to win the next five points in succession and take the set 7-6(3).

Kasatkina looked on target for the final four as she led 4-2 in the decider with a break.  However, Kerber broke back twice to lead 5-4 and serve for the match.

She failed, and in fact from 4-4 there were four successive service failures.

Kerber dropped hers while serving again for the match at 6-5.

In the resulting tie break, Kasatkina took the early advantage 3-1 but there it ended for the 21 year old.

The next 6 points were German and the high quality battle was won by Angie Kerber 6-1 6-7(3) 7-6(3).  41 winners were struck by Angie during her win.

Kerber will move back into the top ten, specifically number ten spot, edging Madison Keys down to eleventh place.

She will more importantly play Caroline Wozniacki in the Eastbourne semi finals 

Caroline Wozniacki (1) defeated Ash Barty (8) 6-4 6-3, winning the last four games of the second set.

Aga Radwanska defeated Jelena Ostapenko (5) 6-2 7-5

She will play Aryna Sabalenka in the semi finals 

Aryna Sabalenka defeated Karolina Pliskova (2) 6-3 2-6 7-6(5)

Men’s quarter finals:

Lukas Lacko defeated wildcard Cameron Norrie 6-3 6-4

He will play Marco Cecchinato in the semi finals 

Marco Cecchinato (4) defeated John Millman 5-7 6-3 6-2

Mischa Zverev defeated Denis Shapovalov (3) 6-3 6-3

He will play Mikhail Kukushkin in the semi finals 

Mikhail Kukushkin defeated Kyle Edmund (2) 5-7 6-3 6-1

Antalya quarter finals:

Adrian Mannarino (1) defeated João Sousa (6) 7-6(3) 6-4

He will play Gaël Monfils in the semi finals 

Wildcard Gaël Monfils defeated Guillermo García-López 7-6(3) 6-4

Jiry Vesely defeated Nikoloz Basilashvili 7-6(5) 6-2

He will play Damir Dzumhur in the semi finals 

Damir Dzumhur (2) defeated Pierre-Hugues Herbert 6-4 6-1

Wimbledon qualifying has concluded, and for Aussie fans, three men have won through to the main draw:

Jason Kubler, ranked 147

John-Patrick Smith, ranked 211

Alex Bolt, ranked 205 - he beat another Australian (Thanasi Kokkinakis) in the final qualifying round

Bernard Tomic was beaten at the last hurdle and won’t play Wimbledon this year.