{"id":108398,"date":"2026-04-28T08:49:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T07:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/?p=108398"},"modified":"2026-04-28T09:23:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T08:23:22","slug":"potapova-writes-a-story-for-the-ages-in-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/potapova-writes-a-story-for-the-ages-in-madrid\/","title":{"rendered":"Potapova writes a story for the ages in Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\"><span data-ogsc=\"rgb(33, 33, 33)\" data-olk-copy-source=\"MessageBody\">A week ago, Anastasia Potapova lost in the qualifying round of the Mutua Madrid Open to Sinja Kraus, 6-2, 6-7 (5-7), 6-3. Normally, she would have packed her bags the next day and headed to her next tournament. However, something happened that nobody, least of all Potapova, expected. The Austrian is still competing in the Caja Magica, and she is doing so in style. On Monday night she defeated Kazakhstan\u2019s Elena Rybakina, the world number two and the pretender to Aryna Sabalenka\u2019s throne.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span data-ogsc=\"rgb(33, 33, 33)\">Potapova\u2019s story is one of those tales tennis occasionally delights us with. One of players who lose in the final qualifying round, but enter the main draw as a lucky loser due to another player\u2019s withdrawal, and end up going deep into the draw.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span data-ogsc=\"rgb(33, 33, 33)\">\u201cIt\u2019s a great win for me. Rybakina is the Australian Open champion, she\u2019s number two in the WTA, one of the best players at the moment\u201d, Potapova said on Monday night after beating Rybakina (7-6 (10-8), 6-4) in the Manolo Santana Stadium. \u201cOf course, I\u2019m very excited about this win, but I don\u2019t want to stop here. I want to keep progressing and get closer in the future to players of this calibre\u201d, added the first woman in history to reach the quarter-finals of the Madrid WTA 1000 as a lucky loser.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span data-ogsc=\"rgb(33, 33, 33)\">Ranked number 56 in the world at 25 years of age, Potapova put in a stunning performance against Rybakina. She was aggressive, soaked up the pressure and managed to frustrate the world number two. The tie-break in the first set was a thriller, with both Potapova and Rybakina producing some astonishing tennis. The last point of that set was one of the moments of the tournament.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span data-ogsc=\"rgb(33, 33, 33)\">\u201cI don\u2019t know how I did it. In that moment, you shouldn\u2019t think about what to do, you just do it. And that\u2019s what I did. I\u2019m very happy with what I\u2019ve achieved\u201d, Potapova said in reference to that nail-biting point in the Manolo Santana Stadium.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span data-ogsc=\"rgb(33, 33, 33)\">The Austrian, who has now almost secured her return to the top 50, will face Czech player Karolina Pliskova in the quarter-finals on Wednesday. The winner will play against whoever triumphs in the Marta Kostyuk-Linda Noskova match. The draw is wide open, and Potapova has a golden opportunity to keep writing new chapters in her remarkable story.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A week ago, Anastasia Potapova lost in the qualifying round of the Mutua Madrid Open to Sinja Kraus, 6-2, 6-7 (5-7), 6-3. Normally, she would have packed her bags the next day and headed to her next tournament. However, something happened that nobody, least of all Potapova, expected. The Austrian is still competing in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":108391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[837,843],"tags":[1200],"class_list":["post-108398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-noticias-tenis-en","category-noticias-tenis-femenino-en","tag-anastasia-potapova"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108398","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\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108399,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108398\/revisions\/108399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}