Top 10 roundup: Paolini, Pegula advance; Zheng upset on busy day in Madrid
MADRID -- Anastasia Potapova upset No. 8 seed Zheng Qinwen 6-4, 6-4 on Friday at the Mutua Madrid Open. That ended a 0-for-8 streak against Top 10 players and, based on ranking, was her best win this year.
This was Zheng’s first match on red clay since winning the gold medal in singles last summer at the Paris Olympics. Previously, Zheng had won three of four matches against Potapova.
After withdrawing from a Round of 16 match against Aryna Sabalenka a week ago in Stuttgart with an undisclosed injury, Potapova has put together two impressive wins. She defeated Ashlyn Krueger in the first round here and was solid against Zheng, converting five of nine break points in a match that required 100 minutes.
“It means a lot because it’s my first win against Top 10 in quite a long time,” Potapova said afterward.
Asked if she knew the details of the streak, Potapova ventured, “I don’t know. I would go five?”
Eight.
“Well that’s not such a bad number -- it is my favorite number.”
Madrid: Draws | Scores | Order of play | Tournament info
Potapova, No. 39 in the PIF WTA Rankings, took the Transylvania Open title back in February and has now won 15 of 21 matches this season.
“This win doesn’t feel crazy and something out of this world,” Potapova said, “only because the last matches that we played it was such a battle, always the tiebreak was involved, over three hours. Maybe this gave me the feeling that I’m actually on the same level as her.
“I think it’s just the mindset that I can do it. I didn’t try to convince myself -- I knew it. That was the difference. In the key moments, I was not afraid of hitting the ball because I knew deep inside that it could be my match.”
Next up in a Sunday third-round match: No. 32 seed Sofia Kenin, who was a 6-3, 6-2 winner over Lulu Sun.
Here is a roundup of other Top 10 players in action Friday:
Paolini cruises to third round
Jasmine Paolini and Katie Boulter may have split four previous meetings down the middle with two wins apiece, but in their first clay-court encounter there was little doubt as to who was superior on the red dirt. No. 6 seed Paolini needed exactly an hour to advance 6-1, 6-2 to the Mutua Madrid Open third round.
Paolini, who reached her first major final at Roland Garros last year, raced out of the blocks, firing five clean winners to jump out to a 2-0 lead. Boulter, whose first-round defeat of Katerina Siniakova on Tuesday had been the first tour-level clay victory of her career, managed to play a superb rally to break back, ending with a backhand winner of her own.
But that was the best Boulter would produce all match. Paolini raced through the next nine games without so much as facing game point, delivering a succession of heavy forehands and deft drop shots that exposed Boulter's movement. In the second set, she conceded just four points in the first five games. The Briton was increasingly unable to control her strokes, racking up 21 unforced errors in total.
At 5-0 up, Paolini had a brief lapse with a pair of double faults, while Boulter managed to find the court sufficiently to get two games on the board. It wasn't enough; the Italian served out the match with a minimum of fuss the second time round. Paolini, whose career-best Madrid result to date was a fourth-round run last year, will bid to repeat that against either No. 29 seed Magda Linette or Maria Sakkari.
Former finalist Pegula rolls
No. 3 seed Jessica Pegula also clinched a spot in the third round. In a clash between the top American and top German in the PIF WTA Rankings, Pegula emerged with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Eva Lys.
Madrid has been a milestone city for Pegula in the past -- she made her first career WTA 1000 final here in 2022, finishing runner-up to Ons Jabeur. Since then, the American has become a three-time WTA 1000 champion, as well as a Grand Slam finalist at the 2024 US Open.
World No. 68 Lys, firmly ensconced as the German No. 1 by a wide margin, had six chances to break Pegula in the first set. Pegula, though, erased five of them to keep her serve generally under control. And the American was incredible on return in the opener, blasting return winners nearly at will as she won 77 percent of points on Lys' second serve.
The second set was more of the same as Pegula closed out the 1-hour and 12-minute win. Once again, Pegula stands alone as this year's tour-level match-win leader, after obtaining her 27th victory of 2025. Pegula is one victory ahead of World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, who has won 26 matches this year.
Pegula will try to keep her Madrid run going with a third-round showdown against Moyuka Uchijima of Japan, which will be their first meeting. Uchijima beat Jabeur in three sets on Friday, preventing a rematch of the 2022 Madrid final.
A lot is at stake for Pegula this week -- a deep run could potentially see her claim the World No. 2 ranking for the first time in her career.
