Daria Kasatkina lost in the quarterfinals of the 2023 Palermo Open to the home player Jasmine Paolini.
Entering the 2023 Palermo Ladies Open, the top-seeded Kasatkina has been the biggest favourite to win the tournament, also because the second-highest ranked player was number 26 on the WTA Tour, Qinwen Zheng, while the Russian is World No. 11.
Kasatkina, who was one of the players that talked about the recent incident that happened in Budapest, started the match well, having three break points in the opening game of the match, but supported by the home crowd, the Italian was able to save all of them.
After that Paolini was able to win 15 of the following 16 rallies, quickly building a 4-0 lead in the opener. Yet, Kasatkina recovered both breaks, making it 3-4, but she never managed to level the score in the first set, as the Italian won it 6-4.
The second set was much better from the top seed. She broke her opponent's serve twice, while being broken only one time, and thanks to that, Kasatkina was able to win the second set 6-4, sending the match into the decider.
The Russian kept the momentum from the previous set also in the set number three, leading 3-1 and having three break points at 40-0 on her opponent's serve, but that was the point when the match started slipping out of Kasatkina's hands.
She lost the following five games while not converting one game point and three more break points, as Paolini won the match 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 in two hours and 26 minutes. The fifth-seeded Italian will now be the player that the crowd in Palermo will try to send all the way, as she'll take on Sara Sorribes Tormo from Spain in the semifinals of the WTA 250 tournament.
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