A record seven Russians will contest the quarter-finals of the St Petersburg Ladies Trophy after victories for seeds Veronika Kudermetova and Daria Kasatkina on Thursday.
Number two seed Kudermetova edged past Kamilla Rakhimova 7-5 3-6 7-6 (7-5), while eighth seed Kasatkina also needed three sets to see off Aliaksandra Sasnovich 5-7 6-3 7-6 (7-2).
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Wildcard Margarita Gasparyan held off Katerina Siniakova 6-4 6-4 and qualifier Anastasia Gasanova shocked fifth seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 1-6 7-6 (10-8) 7-6 (7-4).
They joined fellow Russians Vera Zvonareva, Ekaterina Alexandrova and Svetlana Kuznetsova in the last eight, with Romanian qualifier Jaqueline Cristian also in the line-up.
ANOTHER marathon duel in St. Petersburg
— wta (@WTA) March 18, 2021
No.2 seed Veronika Kudermetova escapes qualifier Rakhimova to make the last eight!#FormulaTX pic.twitter.com/GudVco6BPH
The previous highest number of Russians in a WTA quarter-final line-up was six, set at Moscow 2005 when Kuznetsova was joined by Dinara Safina, Elena Dementieva, Maria Sharapova, Anastasia Myskina and Elena Likhovtseva.
The last time a single nation had as many players at this stage of a WTA event was in Oakland in 1993 when the United States produced seven of the eight quarter-finalists.
