Partners on Wednesday, Rivals on Friday: Sobolieva Meets Noha Akugue in Montreux

Montreux has reached its quarterfinals, and this WTA 125 has produced one of those small oddities the clay-court calendar throws up every so often: Anastasiia Sobolieva and Noma Noha Akugue spent part of this week on the same side of the net. They played doubles together, won the first set of their quarterfinal, lost a tight second and then went down in the match tie-break. On Friday they stand on opposite sides, with a semifinal place at stake and almost nothing left to discover about each other. Each has watched the other serve under pressure, react to a bad game and talk herself back into a match — from two metres away.

Sobolieva Has Gone From Surviving to Dominating in Three Days

Her week began the hard way. Against Mina Hodzic she controlled the opening set, lost her grip through the middle of the match and then had to win a close decider — the kind of match that leaves marks on both legs and mood. What matters is that the dropped second set did not turn into a collapse; she stayed physically engaged through a long afternoon and found her composure when it was needed.

The second round was a different performance entirely. Against Andrea Lázaro García she imposed herself from the first game, conceded nothing in the opening set and finished the job in a little over an hour. Her serve was far more secure than in the opener, and her return pressure never let Lázaro García settle into any clay-court rhythm. Surviving on Monday and dominating on Wednesday is the clearest upward form signal attached to either player here.

The context makes it more striking. Sobolieva arrived from a difficult hard-court outing at the US Open, where she took a tight first set off Alexandra Shubladze, then dropped away sharply and could not stop the slide in the decider. On clay she looks like a different player: moving more naturally, sustaining exchanges, collecting more reward from her return game. Her tennis seems to prefer points that build through repeated groundstroke patterns rather than the quick first-strike trade of a hard court.

One caution stays on the page. She retired during a clay-court final in mid-July and stopped early again in a WTA 125 at the end of the month, with no reliable public diagnosis in either case. Since then she has completed a long US Open qualifying match and both singles matches in Montreux, the three-setter included, with nothing reported. Nothing has been reported at Montreux either — no injury, no illness — but the July retirements have never really been explained, so her movement after long defensive rallies and her leg drive late in a long match remain worth watching.

Noha Akugue's Problem Was Never the Tennis — It Was the Finish

The German left-hander has followed a recognisable script in Montreux: a shaky start, then a forceful answer. She lost the first set to Denisa Zoldakova, changed the match through sharper return pressure and more authority off the forehand, and although the third set tightened after she had taken charge, she completed the comeback instead of letting it slip.

Against Alina Granwehr the problem arrived from the other direction. Noha Akugue built a substantial first-set lead, watched Granwehr level it, and found herself back in exactly the closing situation that had cost her so much in recent weeks. This time she stopped the slide, won the next two games and carried the momentum through the second set. Not a flawless match, but the right kind of answer.

Because before Montreux, those moments kept getting away from her. At the US Open she controlled the first set against Anna Siskova and lost the next two, the decider slipping away late. In Warsaw she again won the opener, lost a tight second and was edged at the end of the third. In Hamburg against Anna Bondar she took the opposite route to the same destination: a poor start, a transformative second set, then the final games gone — and Bondar went on to the final, which says something about the level Noha Akugue was matching.

She has no reported physical concern and has completed all her recent singles matches. Her load this week includes two singles matches plus the shared doubles quarterfinal, though Thursday gave both players a day off from singles. The honest question about her is not fitness but precision: when her forehand timing drifts, her service games and her tolerance in neutral rallies tend to wobble at the same time. Her freshest public comment dates from July, before the home tournament in Hamburg — "I feel quite good… I'm trying to carry the momentum into the tournament" — which predates the sequence of narrow defeats and should not be read as a Montreux statement.

Left-Handed Angles Against Depth and Patience

Noha Akugue is the more obvious aggressor. She is left-handed, treats the forehand as her main shot and uses it to push opponents behind the baseline before going for the open court. The wide serve from the ad court can drag Sobolieva toward the doubles alley and open the space for the next forehand; crosscourt forehands can keep loading her backhand. Her best tennis comes from a balanced position — forcing power from behind the baseline tends to produce short bursts of errors.

Sobolieva's route is less spectacular and no less viable. Her current strength is rhythm and clay sharpness rather than one weapon: returning with depth through the middle to deny those early angles, steering neutral rallies toward Noha Akugue's backhand, extending exchanges without retreating too far, changing direction only from a stable base. The Lázaro García match showed she can take control of points with the return alone. Whether that depth holds against a heavier, more explosive ball is the genuine unknown.

Neither serve looks like a safe haven. Noha Akugue owns the more disruptive geometry thanks to her left-handed delivery, but her second serve was volatile against Zoldakova before looking steadier against Granwehr. Sobolieva's serve is less damaging on paper yet was highly efficient in her latest match. The first ball after the serve may decide more than the serve itself — Noha Akugue needs a forehand-friendly reply, Sobolieva needs enough depth to keep her opponent from stepping inside the baseline. If return games become frequent, patience gains value; if service patterns hold, the rallies get shorter and Noha Akugue benefits.

The mental subplots run in different directions, which is what makes a close first set so interesting. Sobolieva's test is whether her new confidence survives without early scoreboard control; the US Open loss showed a severe mid-match drop is still possible, while her Hodzic win showed she can recover from one. Noha Akugue's test is the finish, the place where Warsaw, New York and Hamburg all slipped through her fingers — and where Montreux has, twice now, gone the other way. Both came here from unsuccessful US Open qualifying campaigns, both are competing near personal ranking highs, and after sharing a doubles court on Wednesday there will be no tactical mystery left for either of them. Just outdoor clay, a semifinal place, and whoever still has her timing intact when it gets tight.