Kostyuk Advances to Guadalajara Quarters Without Playing

Marta Kostyuk is into the quarter-finals of the Guadalajara Open without having struck a single ball in anger.

The top seed arrived in Mexico as the headline act and has already booked a place in the last eight thanks to a first-round bye and a second-round walkover. Her scheduled opponent on Wednesday, Taylor Townsend, withdrew due to illness, clearing a free path for the Ukrainian.

So the world number 10 will finally start her tournament at the quarter-final stage, where the real work begins. Waiting for her is the eighth seed, Liudmila Samsonova, who survived a bruising three-set battle to get there. The Russian edged past Kayla Day 7-6 (7-4) 2-6 7-6 (7-5), a match that swung wildly before Samsonova steadied herself in both tiebreaks.

Kostyuk arrives in Guadalajara in the best season of her career. She lifted her first WTA 1000 trophy in Madrid in May, a breakthrough that confirmed her rise from promising talent to genuine force at the top of the game. She has backed that up at the majors, reaching the semi-finals at both the French Open and Wimbledon this year.

The 24-year-old’s most recent Grand Slam outing ended in the last 16 of the US Open, where she fell to sixth seed Linda Noskova. That defeat, though, did little to dull the sense that Kostyuk is now a permanent fixture in the latter stages of big events.

Guadalajara offers another chance to underline that status. After two rounds of watching from the sidelines, her tournament finally starts—with no margin for easing her way in. Samsonova has already gone the distance once this week. Kostyuk will be expected to hit the ground running.