Kostyuk Advances to Guadalajara Quarters Without Playing

Marta Kostyuk is into the quarter-finals of the Guadalajara Open, and she has not struck a single ball in anger.

The top seed in Mexico, world number 10 Kostyuk skipped the first round with a bye, then advanced again on Wednesday when Taylor Townsend withdrew from their second-round clash due to illness. Two rounds, no points played, and the Ukrainian suddenly finds herself deep in the draw.

That free passage ends now.

Kostyuk is scheduled to finally launch her campaign against eighth seed Liudmila Samsonova, who had to grind every inch of her own route through. The Russian survived a tense three-set battle with Kayla Day, edging through 7-6 (7-4) 2-6 7-6 (7-5) in a match that twice went to tiebreaks and never really loosened its grip on the scoreboard.

If Samsonova arrives hardened by the fight, Kostyuk arrives hardened by the season.

The 24-year-old has already made a major leap in 2024. She captured her first WTA 1000 title in Madrid in May, a breakthrough that confirmed her as a serious force at the top level. She then backed it up on the sport’s biggest stages, reaching the semi-finals at both the French Open and Wimbledon, proving her clay and grass credentials in the space of a few weeks.

Hard courts have asked different questions. Most recently, Kostyuk’s US swing ended in the last 16 in New York, where sixth seed Linda Noskova stopped her run.

Now Guadalajara offers something unusual: a quarter-final berth without the early-round wear and tear. The rest is a gift. What she does with it against a battle-tested Samsonova will say plenty about how far this new version of Kostyuk can go.