Despite leading the set

Grabher fails in the quarter-finals in Florida

Too bad! Julia Grabher from Vorarlberg had to concede defeat in the quarter-finals of the clay court tournament in Boca Raton (US state of Florida) - even though she won the first set.

After clear victories over the Canadian Selin Vakalapudi (6:0, 6:0) and against the top seeded Spaniard Carlota Martinez Cirez (6:2, 6:2), Julia Grabher (WTA no. 524) also got off to a strong start in the quarter-finals of the ITF W50 tournament in Boca Raton. She managed an early break against Eva Vedder (Hol) and quickly took a 4:1 lead. Although the Dutchwoman managed to break back to 4:5, the player from Dornbirn held her nerve, took the service from the 353rd-ranked player in the world again and took the first set 6:4.

Medical timeout and 13 points in a row
Grabher took a 1:0 lead in the second set, but then struggled with problems and had to call a medical timeout. During this phase, Vedder scored 13 points in a row, pulled away to 5:1 and went on to win the set 6:2.

Back in the top 500
In the all-important third set, Vedder again managed an early break for 2:1, a lead that the 25-year-old never relinquished. After 128 minutes of play, she converted her fourth match point to win 4:6, 6:2, 6:3. This also reduced her lead in the Head-2-Head with Grabher to 2:3. The good news: thanks to her quarter-final appearance, Julia will improve her WTA ranking by around 35 positions and climb back into the top 500 in the world.