After Ajla Tomljanovic sealed a quarterfinal berth at the WTA tournament in Austin, Daria Saville matched that feat with at the concurrent event in Merida.
Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 27 February 2025 | Matt Trollope
Ajla Tomljanovic and Daria Saville continued their impressive progress on tour this week, advancing to respective quarterfinals in Austin and Merida.
It marks the first time in more than five years that two Australian women have reached quarterfinals at different WTA events in the same week.
The last time was in January 2020, when Ash Barty progressed to the Adelaide quarterfinals at the same time Lizette Cabrera reached the last eight in Hobart.
Maya Joint made it three Aussie quarterfinalists at WTA events in the same week by routing Donna Vekic 6-1 6-2 to join Saville in the last eight in Merida.
MORE: Joint routs Vekic, cementing 15-year first for Aussie women
RELATED: With latest win in Merida, Maya Joint set to make top-100 debut
Kimberly Birrell was onto something when discussing her compatriots on this week’s episode of The Sit-Down podcast.
“Obviously there’s been quite a few injuries within our female cohort within Australia, so I’m not comparing myself to the other girls,” she replied when discussing her position as top Aussie woman.
“And I know that Dasha [Saville] and Ajla [Tomljanovic], when they’re back playing at their best, they’re gonna be ranked well inside the top 100.”
They’re not there yet, but this week’s results have ensured Tomljanovic and Saville are trending in that direction.
Tomljanovic rises to a provisional ranking of world No.103 after her latest success in Austin, her first tour-level quarterfinal since last year’s grass-court tournament in Birmingham.
https://twitter.com/WTA/status/1894865667607732273
The 31-year-old recovered from a set down against Britain’s Jodie Burrage, winning 11 of the last 13 games, and the final seven in a row, to storm to a 4-6 6-3 6-0 victory.
Birrell could have been her quarterfinal opponent in Texas, yet the Queenslander fell in three tight sets to Japanese qualifier Ena Shibahara later on Thursday (AEDT).
Should Tomljananovic win that quarterfinal against Shibahara, she is expected to return to the WTA top 100.
Further south in Mexico, Saville progressed to her first tour-level quarterfinal since this time last year, when she appeared in the WTA 500 quarterfinals in San Diego.
Merida is also a 500-level event, and Saville has reached the last eight there after impressive wins over Ukrainians Marta Kostyuk and Anhelina Kalinina.
The latter was a compelling affair lasting almost two hours and 42 minutes, during which Saville also rebounded from a set and a break down to eventually complete a 4-6 6-2 6-2 triumph on her third match point.
comeback 🚨@Daria_gav | #MeridaOpenAKRON pic.twitter.com/nwmZqOzKoo
— wta (@WTA) February 26, 2025
“Really tough conditions, it was really hot in the first set. I was fighting the weather a bit,” said Saville, whose triumph over Kostyuk marked her first top-20 win in three years.
“In the end I feel like I settled down a bit… it’s tough conditions, it’s a very bouncy court and I feel like we both were making a few mistakes off similar balls, like trying to decide whether we should attack it or not, and then in the end I felt like maybe I was just a little bit better with that.
“Really happy, and I feel like I always play well in Mexico for some reason.”
The win sets up a quarterfinal meeting with either No.2 seed Paula Badosa or Romania’s Jaqueline Cristian.
Saville will target her first WTA-level semifinal since Hobart in January 2024. She is on a four-match winning streak after coming through the qualifying rounds.
So too is Joint, another Aussie qualifier who trounced fifth seed Vekic and who has surrendered just 15 games in four matches to get to this point of the tournament.
