AMERICAN up and comer, Catherine Bellis (known as CiCi) has wound back the clock with back-to-back wins at the Top Seed Open showing her class in the Lexington event to book a spot in the final eight. The 302nd ranked United States representative is a far throw from her 2017 career-high ranking of 35th in the world, but the now 21-year-old is on the rise again.

This year the talented youngster has had an underrated season, knocking off four top 100 players and pushing top 20 talent, Elise Mertens to three sets in the Australian Open back in January. Whilst she was blown away in the third set in that match to go down 6-1 6-7 6-0, Bellis was able to enjoy wins over world number 22 Karolina Muchova and world number 59 Marie Bouzkova at Melbourne Park and Hobart in a fortnight.

At the Top Seed Open, Bellis completely destroyed compatriot Francesca Di Lorenzo in just 61 minutes of matchplay, the quickest and most one-sided match of the opening round. In the Round of 16, she only took an extra 24 minutes to overcome another compatriot in Jessica Pegula, 6-3 6-2 to book a spot in the final eight of the hard court tournament. Perhaps the most impressive thing about the second round win was in her first match of the year at Auckland, Bellis was blown away by Pegula, 6-0 6-4.

So what happened to the former top 40 player?

Injuries. Following her straight sets loss to Victoria Azarenka at Miami back in 2018 when she was ranked 44th in the world, Bellis did not play again until November last year – an Oracle Challenger Series event in Houston – when she reached the third round going down to Kirsten Flipkens. Fast forward to January and she earned spots in the main draw at Auckland and Hobart via her protected ranking – long-term injured players can use it in order to automatically qualify for tournaments and not have to go through qualifying – as well as a wildcard at Melbourne Park.

Now the 21-year-old is eyeing off an unlikely title at Lexington, having already risen more than 500 spots since the start of the year with only three tournaments in the books. Without winning another match, Bellis’ quarter finals appearance has seen her bolt up to 251st in the world. A semi-finals appearance will see her on the verge of a top 200 place, a finals appearance up at 169th, and the most unlikeliest of title wins all the way up at 134th in the world.

While a win at Lexington is unlikely, Bellis will focus her attention on fellow up and comer, Jil Teichmann following the Swiss talent’s straight sets win of Yulia Putintseva. The upset defeat of the fifth seed Kazakhstan player means just two seeds remain in the quarter finals – top seed Serena Williams and eighth seed Ons Jabeur – following Williams’ three-set victory over sister Venus, 3-6 6-3 6-4. Jabeur’s quarter final was decided yesterday and she will take on young gun Coco Gauff, to play the winner of Jennifer Brady and Marie Bouzkova in the final four. Williams will face compatriot Shelby Rogers who knocked off Leylah Fernandez in a great second set fightback from two breaks down to win 6-2 7-5.