The Mutua Madrid Open throne is vacant. Aryna Sabalenka was the clear favourite for the title in the Caja Magica as she bid to become the first woman to lift the trophy four times. However, her elimination in the quarter-finals has blown the draw wide open. The throne is vacant and there will be a new champion.<\/p>\n
Mirra Andreeva, Hailey Baptiste, Anastasia Potapova and Marta Kostyuk are the four women still standing as the semi-finals approach. Andreeva, the only one of that group who knows what it\u2019s like to win a WTA 1000, will face Baptiste in Thursday\u2019s day session, while Kostyuk and Potapova will cross swords in the evening for the other ticket to Saturday\u2019s grand finale.<\/p>\n
Andreeva-Baptiste (Not before 16:00, Manolo Santana Stadium)<\/strong><\/p>\n Conchita Mart\u00ednez\u2019s prot\u00e9g\u00e9 is, on paper, the hot favourite right now after the eliminations of big-hitters like Sabalenka, Rybakina, Swiatek and Gauff. Andreeva, who turned 19 on Wednesday, is the only top-ten player among the semi-finalists and the only one to have lifted WTA 1000 titles (Dubai and Indian Wells in 2025). This April, she also claimed the Linz title on clay, perhaps a sign of things to come in Madrid.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very excited to reach the semi-finals and I\u2019m very happy with the tennis I\u2019m playing\u201d, said Andreeva, eighth in the WTA rankings, after defeating Leylah Fern\u00e1ndez in the quarter-finals on Tuesday. \u201cI feel I\u2019m doing a great job even though at times my emotions got the better of me. The most important thing is to know how to manage your emotions and reset when necessary\u201d.<\/p>\n Baptiste knows a thing or two about that, having saved six match points against none other than Aryna Sabalenka on Tuesday to notch up the biggest win of her career. The American, ranked number 32, will play her first WTA 1000 semi-final with the confidence that comes from beating the best player in the world.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel incredible. I\u2019m very proud of myself. This shows me where my game is; I\u2019ve always believed in it. I feel I\u2019m starting to show it, and the world is starting to see it too. I have huge confidence right now\u201d, said Baptiste after knocking out the three-time champion of Madrid.<\/p>\n Potapova-Kostyuk (Not before 21:30, Manolo Santana Stadium)<\/strong><\/p>\n Potapova\u2019s journey is undoubtedly one of the stories of the 2026 Mutua Madrid Open. The Austrian lost in the second round of qualies but found her way into the main draw as a lucky loser and, step by step, she has progressed to the semi-finals. Never before has a WTA player gone so far in Madrid via the qualifiers.<\/p>\n Potapova is showing tremendous resilience. Apart from bouncing back from defeat in the qualifiers, on Wednesday in the quarter-finals against Pliskova, she managed to escape from an impossible looking situation. The Austrian had three match points in the second set but squandered them and had to wait until the third set to seal her passage to the semi-finals.<\/p>\n The world No. 56 now faces Marta Kostyuk, the player who has proved the most consistent during this fortnight in Madrid. The Ukrainian has reached the semi-finals without dropping a single set. \u201cI\u2019m very happy with how things are going this week. Even I didn\u2019t imagine I could be playing at this level\u201d, Kostyuk said on Wednesday after defeating Linda Noskova 7-6 (1), 6-0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Mutua Madrid Open throne is vacant. Aryna Sabalenka was the clear favourite for the title in the Caja Magica as she bid to become the first woman to lift the trophy four times. However, her elimination in the quarter-finals has blown the draw wide open. The throne is vacant and there will be a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":108775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[837,843],"tags":[1200,1202,1000],"class_list":["post-108796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-noticias-tenis-en","category-noticias-tenis-femenino-en","tag-anastasia-potapova","tag-hailey-baptiste","tag-mirra-andreeva"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108796","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=108796"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108798,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108796\/revisions\/108798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}