Franklin Tiafoe’s simple instruction arrived at a decisive moment: “Breath and believe, breathe and believe.” With that line in her ear and the steady presence of coach Will Woodall, Hailey Baptiste turned a gradual rise into a sudden surge at the Madrid Open.

The 24-year-old reached her first WTA 1000 semifinal and stunned the tour with a victory over Aryna Sabalenka, saving six match points to register her first win over a world No. 1. Earlier in the draw she defeated eighth-ranked Jasmine Paolini and 11th-ranked Belinda Bencic, a sequence that underlined how far her game has come.

Baptiste’s progress has been methodical. She closed seasons at 166, 131, 92 and 61, and since January she has nearly cut that again to No. 32. Her style mirrors that arc: unhurried, efficient and thoughtful. She can strike as hard as any player, but she prefers to build points with a kick serve or a slice backhand before finishing.

“I just like to be creative on court,” Baptiste says. “I grew up playing with boys pretty much my whole youth. My coaches kind of coached me to play a little bit more like a guy.” “Obviously it helps me, I think. Girls don’t love the kick serve and the slice.”

Her parents and the USTA played key roles early on. “He couldn’t keep doing it,” Baptiste said of her father’s patience. “He didn’t love it as much as I did.” She began at the JTCC in College Park at 9 and moved to the national training center in Orlando at 15. “The USTA had a huge, huge impact on me,” she said. “Without them, I wouldn’t be where I am.” One coach in particular, Jamea Jackson, also helped: “She got my head screwed on straight, explaining what it’s like to be a professional. She started transitioning me into that mindset.”

Baptiste spent stretches on tour without a coach, learning to process losses alone. “Lose a match, didn’t really have anyone to talk to afterwards,” Baptiste said of those days. “Had to do the whole [post-match] debrief process by myself. You just learn things about yourself and about the game. I think it gave me confidence.”

She fought back again in the semifinal against Mirra Andreeva, saving a match point and reaching 3-5 in the second set before falling in a tight tiebreaker. “I decided to stop fighting myself,” Baptiste said. “I want to say, ‘Oh, it’s so hard, you don’t understand what I’m feeling.’ But at the end of the day, it’s just a decision.” “Either you get over it, or you sit in that feeling, and sitting in that feeling has gotten me nowhere.”

Madrid showed Baptiste can challenge the elite and argues she belongs in the U.S. contender conversation alongside Coco Gauff and Amanda Anisimova.

Alexander Zverev advanced to his fifth straight ATP Masters 1000 semifinal after a commanding win at the Mutua Madrid Open.

The two-time champion beat Flavio Cobolli 6-1, 6-4 to register his 25th victory of the season. Zverev surged to a 5-0 lead in the opening set and kept control through the finish, closing the match with a +4 differential from 23 winners and 19 unforced errors. His serve produced 12 aces and a 9.5 serve quality rating.

This semifinal marks the end, for now, of a streak in which Zverev repeatedly crossed paths with Jannik Sinner; this time he avoided that matchup. The run of results stretches back to the 2025 Paris Rolex Masters.

Zverev, who remains No. 3 in the rankings, is seeking his first title since winning in Munich last April. Cobolli had ended Zverev’s chance to retain that Munich crown earlier in the season.

“No revenge, I love Flavio. He’s one of my favorite guys on tour,” insisted Zverev during his ATP Media interview with Ursin Cadereas. “This is sport. Sport can change very quickly. In Munich, he played an amazing match. I didn’t play a very good match. Today, maybe it was the opposite.”

With the victory Zverev, the Hamburg native, now holds 179 clay-court wins, the most by any German male player in the Open Era. Despite that milestone, a stubborn problem remains: he has lost six previous Masters 1000 semifinals and has yet to break that sequence.

“Of course, I need to get past this stage now,” he laughed.

Zverev’s opponent in the Madrid semifinal will be Alexander Blockx. The 21-year-old Belgian, last December’s runner-up at the Next Gen ATP Finals, eliminated the reigning champion Casper Ruud 6-4, 6-4 to reach his first Masters 1000 semifinal.

“I think he has great spirit when he’s on the tennis court. I enjoy watching him play,” commented Zverev.

Mirra Andreeva celebrated her 19th birthday with a milestone week at the Mutua Madrid Open, reaching her first WTA 1000 final of the season and accepting a pair of high heels as a gift.

The 19-year-old, seeded ninth at the Caja Magica and a former Roland Garros semifinalist, beat Hailey Baptiste 6-4, 7-6 (8) in the semifinals. The victory capped a strong clay-court swing that followed a title run in Linz and a semifinal at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix.

“I was really not expecting that gift,” exclaimed Andreeva, who spoke on-court about wanting a new pair of heels after her quarterfinal win, “but my agent Juan [Gerard], he was very thoughtful and he got me a pair of high heels.

“I already have a video in my phone of how I walk in them. I was extremely happy to receive that gift yesterday. I’ll try to go out somewhere maybe next week to wear them and feel pretty.”

Against Baptiste, who had earlier saved six match points to upset world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the quarterfinals, Andreeva was in control for large stretches. Serving for the match at 5-4 she missed an overhead that would have produced match points, then lost three games in a row and faced three set points in the Sudden Death tiebreak before closing out the win.

“I feel like in the first set, especially, I feel like there were at least a couple of games where I didn’t even serve a second serve, so I was trying not to think about it,” Andreeva said. “Because as it always happens, when you just think about how, ‘Oh, I haven’t missed my first serve in a while,’ the first thing you do is miss your serve.”

“Honestly, I feel so much adrenaline inside,” Andreeva said. “I feel like I’m still nervous! Honestly, I’m just so happy that I won and I’m so happy I was able to save so many set points. I was very happy with how I served today, as well. I feel like the serve helped me a lot. I’m just so, so happy, I cannot really find a lot of words to describe how I’m feeling right now.”

Andreeva will await the winner of the second semifinal between Marta Kostyuk and lucky loser Anastasia Potapova. On preparing for that match she said, “I like to watch tennis, but I feel like I want to forget about tennis and do something in my room, watch some TV series, read a book, do something. Conchita will watch. She’s going to do her job well, I hope!”