Hamburg's Tamara Korpatsch has reached the semi-finals of her home tournament, the MSC Hamburg Ladies Open 2026, for the very first time. Korpatsch beat the second-seeded Ukrainian Anhelina Kalinina 6-3, 1-6, 6-1 in the final quarter-final of the WTA 250 tournament on Friday evening, also winning her third three-set match this week.
„My legs felt really good today, but perhaps I shouldn't go over three sentences every time,“ said the 31-year-old with a broad grin. Her secret to success in the quarter-final against Anhelina Kalinina: „I just did what my father said. But I won't tell you what it was,“ laughed Korpatsch, who will reach a new career high in the world rankings after the tournament. For the first time, she is among the top 70 players in the world! But this result is only an intermediate goal in Hamburg. Her mission at Rothenbaum is far from over! Korpatsch last reached a WTA final in February of this year, and celebrated her only tournament win to date in 2023 in Cluj, Romania. „I'm just thinking from match to match now. I won against Mayar Sherif in Rome in the tie-break of the third set,“ Korpatsch recalled.
A great deal has happened since then. Mayar Sherif is currently riding an almost uncanny wave of success. The best Egyptian tennis player of all time won her 13th consecutive match in the quarter-finals and is hungry for more success. She had to battle for around three and a half hours against Paula Badosa on the Centre Court to defeat the Spaniard for the second time in five days – this time with a score of 7:6, 6:7 and 6:4. „It was an incredibly high level, I haven't experienced anything like it for a long time. I simply believed in what I was doing over the last few weeks. And when you do that, you are rewarded in the end,“ concluded Sherif after an extremely intense match, before immediately regenerating as best she could. It has long been clear: the player who can recover from the exertions the quickest this week has the best chance of winning the tournament.
The first semi-final on Saturday (not before 2 pm) will be contested by Anna Bondar and Elina Avanesyan. Bondar seamlessly continued her impressive run at Hamburg's Rothenbaum on Friday as well, celebrating her twelfth win in 13 matches in the Hanseatic city with a 6-1, 7-6 victory over Alina Charaeva. Things are really going almost automatically for the Hungarian in Hamburg. „I'm taking all the positives from the matches. And of course, my self-confidence from recent years. I will give my best. Hopefully, I'll reach the final,“ said Bondar. It would be the third consecutive Hamburg final for the very versatile Bondar, who is now an extremely dangerous opponent on all surfaces, following her tournament victory in 2024 and her final appearance last year. Elina Avanesyan, meanwhile, is going into this semi-final day completely rested. After Oleksandra Oliynykova withdrew due to an abdominal muscle injury, the Armenian advanced to the semi-finals without a fight. It is the first time since March 2025 that she has reached a semi-final on tour again. Her only final to date was in Iasi, Romania, in 2024.
