A perfect day for Russian players in St. Petersburg

Wednesday at the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy had records broken one after the other. The first match of the day was the longest one in the history of this tournament, and then the following match improved that record. Also, Russian players thrived in today’s first-round and second-round matches, as all the country’s four representatives who were in singles action managed to advance. Let’s do a recap with the photos of our amazing photographer Jimmie48.

In what was by then the longest ever St. Petersburg match, Russian qualifier Anastasia Gasanova defeated Ukraine’s Katarina Zavatska 6-2 6-7(6) 7-5 in three hours and four minutes to advance to the second round.

The world No.241 Gasanova is playing only her second WTA main draw, having made her WTA main-draw debut at Abu Dhabi earlier this year, where she stunned world No.6 Karolina Pliskova in straight sets.

Right after Gasanova won the longest ever St. Petersburg match, Russian wildcard Vera Zvonareva extended the record by taking three hours and ten minutes to overcome third seed Fiona Ferro 6-7(6) 7-5 7-6(2) in the second round.

Fourth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, the third Russian on today’s schedule, didn’t spend much time on the court to dispatch Chinese qualifier Wang Xinyu 6-1 7-5 and reach the quarterfinals. The world No.159 Wang was bidding to secure her first victory over a Top 100 player.

The fourth match this Wednesday also featured a Russian player and it was another victory for the host country as top seed Ekaterina Alexandrova defeated Tereza Martincova 6-3 6-4 to enter the last eight.

Alexandrova owns the most indoor match wins across the WTA Tour with 32. Martincova entered this week’s tournament on a career-high ranking of No.107.

In the nightcap, Romanian qualifier Jaqueline Cristian moved into her first WTA quarterfinal with a tough 6-3 7-6(9) win over sixth seed Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia.

Thursday’s schedule will feature the remaining four second-round matches. Two encounters will be all-Russian and the other two will both feature one Russian player.