The Spanish María Martínez showcased her finesse in the second qualifying round after eliminating the German Mina Hodzic

 

After two intense days, the preview of the ITF W100 tournament of the Peña Vitoriana Tennis Club defined the eight players who have earned, on their own merits, access to the final phase that will begin on Wednesday.

 

 The Spanish María Martínez Vaquero achieved her goal brilliantly, after her hard-working victory in three sets (7-5, 6-7 and 7-6) against the German Mina Hodzic in a match that went beyond three hours, interrupted by the rain. After the German equalised the clash in the second, taking it to a tie-break, the third was also resolved in the same way opting for the interests of the Asturian. Her qualification to the final phase increases the list of national players to a total of six, along with Cayetana Gay, Carmen López Martínez, Lucía Cortez, Carolina Gómez and the Basque Mercedes Aristegui.

The rest of the players also fulfilled the forecasts. The Belgian Lara Salden overtook the North American Isabella Barrera by 6-4, 6-3, the Dutch player Lian Tran beat the Serbian in two sets (6-4, 6-1), the French Estella Cascino did the same and achieved the victory against the Bolivian Noelia Zeballos (6-2, 2-6,7-5) in another intense match that left almost at two and a half hours. The Italian Verena Meliss beat Cristina Díaz by 6-3, 6-3, as did her compatriot Laura Mair who overtook Arina Arifullina by 6-3, 6-3 and the Turkish Pemra Ozgen got rid of the Czech Victoria Bervid in just one hour of duel (6-2, 6-0). To the aforementioned, there is the Mexican María José Portillo who entered directly because of the injury of the Danish Elena Jamshidi.

Therefore, 32 players from the final phase of the, with 2023 winner Daria Snigur as the number 1 seed and candidate to revalidate the title, will begin the road to the final on Wednesday.

Tomorrow the doubles competition will begin with the round of 16. Fifteen teams, the favorite formed by Eden Silva and Valeriya Strakhova go directly to the quarterfinals, will also look for a place in the final that will be held on Saturday the 20th. In 2023, the winners were the English Alicia Barnett and OIivia Nicholls.

There will be a Basque presence, with the Alavian Nadine Arbaizar along with the Gipuzkoan Olga Bienzobas, as well as the Biscayan Ainhoa Meili and Mercedes Aristegui, who will partner with Eva Garkusha and Cayetana Gay, respectively.

There will be a total of seven games scheduled for tomorrow that will start from 12 noon.