<p>MADRID &mdash; Ashleigh Barty and Iga Swiatek, the two most recent champions of the French Open, will meet in the last 16 of the Madrid Open.</p>
<p>They won their second-round matches on Saturday to set up the first-time meeting.</p>
<p>The top-ranked Barty needed three sets to beat 80th-ranked Tamara Zidansek. Barty struggled with her first serves, but she compensated by striking nine aces and saved nine break points to outlast Zidansek 6-4, 1-6, 6-3. That took her win streak on clay to 13 matches after claiming the Stuttgart title last week.</p>
<p>“A really tough match,” Barty said. “(I) made a lot of errors. I think I was missing in the right way, but still just a foot or two here or there makes a big difference. I felt like there were probably too many loose ones for me today.”</p>
<p>Swiatek brushed aside Laura Siegemund 6-3, 6-3 for the Pole’s ninth win in a row on clay.</p>
<p>”(It’s) a match that I look forward to,” Barty said about Monday’s meeting with Swiatek. “I’ve hit with her once in Melbourne a few months ago. She’s got a seriously impressive game. It’s a challenge that we go into with a really clean slate, a little bit of a period of trying to figure each other out and how our games match up.”</p>
<p>Barty won the French Open in 2019, and Swiatek last year in Barty’s absence.</p>
<p>Petra Kvitova also advanced after she beat Angelique Kerber in another battle of Grand Slam winners.</p>
<p>Kvitova, a three-time champion in Madrid, broke Kerber’s serve four times in a 6-4, 7-5 victory.</p>
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