They say having a short memory can be one of the greatest assets one can have on a tennis court and on Monday, Hailey Baptiste put that skill to perfect use to knock out 11th-seeded Belinda Bencic and break new ground on the clay courts of the Caja Magica.<\/p>\n
Through to the quarter-finals of a WTA 1000 tournament for just the second time in her career and first time on clay, the 24-year-old American navigated a dramatic 95-minute second set that featured a 30-point tiebreak before she notched a 6-1, 6-7(14), 6-3 victory over Bencic.<\/p>\n
Fresh off of a third-round win against world No.9 Jasmine Paolini in the previous round (firing 14 aces along the way to claim the third top-10 win of her career), Baptiste came out firing against Bencic in the round of 16, and leapt to a one-set lead in 25 minutes.<\/p>\n
She broke Bencic in the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0game of the second set and got her first match point while serving for the match at 6-5. But that\u2019s when things started to get wild.<\/p>\n Bencic struck back by converting her fourth break point of the game to force a tiebreak, and what followed was the longest WTA main draw tiebreak of 2026.<\/p>\n Baptiste led 6-4 in the breaker but still couldn\u2019t close, as the pair engaged in brutal all-court exchanges, some of the angles defying physics.<\/p>\n After four more match points came and went for Baptiste, the American double-faulted to trail 11-12.<\/p>\n She couldn\u2019t contain her emotions and proceeded to destroy her racquet and received a code violation.<\/p>\n The drama didn\u2019t end there.<\/p>\n Bencic then netted an easy put-away volley to squander a fourth set point. 12-12.<\/p>\n Two points later, Baptiste put on an insane defensive performance to save a fifth set point and level for 13-13.<\/p>\n A sixth match point was saved by Bencic, who unleashed a down-the-line forehand winner for 14-14.<\/p>\n This time the Swiss Olympic gold medallist didn\u2019t hesitate and she finally converted her sixth set point with a little help from Baptiste, who committed an unforced error on a drive forehand volley, which landed tamely in the net to put an end to a mind-blowing tiebreak.<\/p>\n Baptiste would have been forgiven had she felt too deflated in the deciding set. But instead, she got back to her super-aggressive game plan and executed it to perfection, breaking Bencic for a 4-2 advantage and maintaining her lead to wrap up a milestone victory in two hours and 42 minutes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe tiebreaker took years off my life for sure,\u201d Baptiste said with a laugh, speaking to the\u00a0Tennis Channel.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cBut I knew if I wanted to win that match, I was going to have to shake that off pretty fast. I couldn\u2019t sit in that feeling for long and that\u2019s what I did. I had to have that short-term memory and get on with it.\u201d<\/p>\n Baptiste felt like the racquet smash helped her release \u201ca good amount of tension\u201d at the tail-end of the tiebreak and used the time between the second and third sets wisely.<\/p>\n \u201cI used up the entire set changeover to soak in that, because it was quite painful,\u201d she explained to reporters after the match.<\/p>\n \u201cBut once we started the third set, I knew that I had to erase that from my mind because if I wanted to win the match, I couldn’t think about that any longer. It had to be a quick turnaround to get out of there.\u201d<\/p>\n Unlike the majority of American players, Baptiste loves playing on clay.<\/p>\n Her best Grand Slam result came last year at Roland-Garros, where she reached the fourth round for the first time, and she\u2019s been hitting new milestones at various tour stops around the world over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n She made the third rounds at Wimbledon (2025) and the Australian Open (2026) for the first time, she featured in a maiden WTA 1000 quarter-final in Miami in March, and she arrived in Madrid with a career-high ranking of 32 in the world. She was at No.88 this time last year.<\/p>\n \u201cI’d say the process always,\u201d said Baptiste of why she\u2019s been playing better and better in recent months.<\/p>\n \u201cSpecifically, I think that my mind has been very strong and I’ve been able to come back point after point and play smart and at a high level. It’s made a big difference in the big moments and big points. I’m also playing smarter and with more confidence. That’s making a huge difference in my results.\u201d<\/p>\n Next up for Baptiste is the same woman who stopped her in the Miami quarters last month: world No.1 Aryna Sabalenka.<\/p>\n Baptiste lost that clash in Miami 6-4, 6-4 as Sabalenka went on to complete the Sunshine Double.<\/p>\n Sabalenka has lost just one match of the 27 matches she played in 2026, is riding a 15-match winning streak, and is a three-time champion at the Madrid Open.<\/p>\n Baptiste believes she is up for the task.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that I should continue to play the way that I’ve been playing. Playing my game,\u201d said the Washington DC native.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I can just be a little bit more solid and maybe give her a little bit tougher time on her service games, then I think that I have a chance to win and I believe that I can win.\u201d<\/p>\n Sounds like the perfect way to approach a showdown with the defending champion!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" They say having a short memory can be one of the greatest assets one can have on a tennis court and on Monday, Hailey Baptiste put that skill to perfect use to knock out 11th-seeded Belinda Bencic and break new ground on the clay courts of the Caja Magica. Through to the quarter-finals of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":108277,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[837,843],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-noticias-tenis-en","category-noticias-tenis-femenino-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108274"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108332,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108274\/revisions\/108332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}