The lucky loser who no longer wants to leave

She shouldn’t even have been there. Knocked out in qualifying by Sinja Kraus, brought back in as a lucky loser after Keys withdrew, Anastasia Potapova has turned that consolation ticket into a legendary run. Zhang, Ostapenko, Rybakina: three wins, three players who all had every reason to beat her on paper. Against Rybakina on Monday night at midnight, down 5–3 in the first set, she took the tiebreak 10–8, collapsing to the ground on a backhand winner, fingers bloodied, before breaking twice in the second set to close it out 6–4. She said after the match that she just wanted to test her level against the world number two. The test has been passed beyond anything she could have hoped for. On clay in 2026: eight wins, two losses, a 57.9% return rate on opponents’ second serve, and a deciding-sets record of 71% that shows she never lets go when things get tight.

On the other side of the net, Karolína Plíšková is writing her own resurrection story. Ankle, back, arm: three years of physical torment, a protected ranking of 197, and yet four wins in Madrid including Sakkari and Mertens, coming back from 4–1 40–0 down in the third set. The 34-year-old Czech is the lowest-ranked player ever to reach a quarterfinal in the history of the tournament. Her serve holds 79.2% of service games won on clay in 2026, she defends the key points on her own serve better than Potapova does, and her 4.2 aces on average over the period give real weight to her service games. But her 33% second serve in her last match against Sierra is exactly the target Potapova will go after from the very first game, with one of the most aggressive returns on tour on this surface.