Sakkari continues hot streak with quarterfinal win over Mladenovic

Maria Sakkari had full control of her quarterfinal match against Kristina Mladenovic—even though she lost the first set. With a 5-7, 6-3, 6-0 win, the 23-year-old is into the Premier 5 semifinals, and she's looking like she firmly belongs there along with her compatriot Stefanos Tsitsipas.

"It's pretty big. Something that I think it happens for the first time in tennis history," she said. "I'm pretty sure about that because we never had two good players playing at the same time. Very proud for both of us."

Both Sakkari and Mladenovic had to come through qualifying at the Italian Open, which meant two extra matches for each of them. They also had to play two matches each on Thursday with Sakkari taking out Anett Kontaveit and Petra Kvitova, and Mladenovic ousting Belinda Bencic and Ashleigh Barty.

Mladenovic is finding her game after six-month stretch saw her lose 15 straight matches starting at the end of 2017—right around the time she cracked the Top 10. She kicked off the 2019 season with four losses and has fallen out of the Top 60, but since hiring Sascha Bajin in mid-April, the 26-year-old had a 10-2 record going into Friday's match.

Both players relied on on-court coaching with Sakkari calling on Tom Hill and Mladenovic bringing in Bajin. After fighting back from 1-4 and 3-5 down, the Frenchwoman spoke with Bajin at 4-5. Talking in a mixture of English and Serbian, he told her everything she was doing "was good" but to do it better with more spin and intensity and to take the ball earlier. He walked away with the memo: "You can do better than this." She won the next three games.

But Sakkari regained control and wiped Mladenovic out in the next two sets, letting everyone know that she's a real threat to be reckoned with.

"I was so pissed when I lost the first set," she said. "I think I did good in the beginning but bad at the end. I had a bad mentality at the end of the first set. Then I think I was 1-2 down, love-40. I don't know, I said to myself, just play, just make balls, go for the things that Tom said."

Though Mladenovic is going in the right direction, her Top-10 form is not entirely back as she completely crumbled in the third set. While Sakkari found "the zone."

"Yeah, I mean, I just sat down after I won the second set. I was like, Now it's your time, now it's time to do what you have to do," Sakkari said. "Just went after my shots. Trusted myself. I think I did pretty well."

Sakkari has not experienced as dramatic of a rollercoaster dip in her career, but she did slog through a six-match losing streak after hitting a career-high ranking of No. 29 last September. She, too, has been rising back up in recent weeks after winning her first title in Rabat to become the first Greek WTA champion in over 10 years.

Sakkari is now riding a May 11-1 record going into her semifinal against Karolina Pliskova.