Another of the year's longest matches took place on Tuesday at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, with No.8 seed Belinda Bencic of Switzerland overcoming Ukraine's Marta Kostyuk 6-7(7), 7-6(5), 6-4 in 3 hours and 27 minutes.
Bencic battled back from a set and a break down in their marathon encounter to reach the Round of 16 in Dubai.
Photos: All of this year's three-hour matches
The five longest WTA main-draw matches of the year so far have all taken place within the last three days, at both Dubai and the Merida Open Akron in Mexico:
Bencic has won 15 tour-level matches this season, which leads the WTA. This year, she has already picked up titles at Adelaide International 2 and Abu Dhabi.
But on Tuesday, World No.55 Kostyuk captured the first set in a tiebreak and broke Bencic in the opening game of the second set. However, Bencic clawed her way back in the second set and leveled the match with her own tiebreak win.
The first four games of the third set went against serve before Bencic took control for good with a break for 4-3. Bencic nearly let her lead slip when serving for the match at 5-4, but she erased two break points in that game before collecting yet another win.
Bencic denied Kostyuk the first Top 10 win of her career. Kostyuk is 0-13 against Top 10 opposition, with four of those losses coming already this year.
