Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei cruised into the quarter-finals of the Guangzhou International Women’s Open yesterday with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over fellow wild-card Zhu Lin of China.
World No. 171 Hsieh, the champion in Guangzhou in 2012, saved two of five break-point chances and converted six of 11 as her opponent served up seven double faults to compete the victory in 1 hour, 12 minutes and set up a quarter-final against French second seed Alize Cornet.
Cornet, the world No. 22, advanced to the quarters after rallying for a 3-6, 7-5, 6-1 over Shahar Peer of Israel in 2 hours, 15 minutes.
Photo: Reuters
Also advancing to the quarter-finals yesterday were Romania’s Monica Niculescu, Monica Puig of Puerto Rico, Spain’s Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor, Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland, Chinese qualifier Zhang Kai-lin and Chinese wild-card Wang Yafan.
In the doubles quarter-finals, Taiwan’s Chuang Chia-jung and Liang Chen of China advanced to the semi-finals after winning a super tiebreak against fourth seeds Raluca Olaru of Romania and Peer in 1 hour, 29 minutes.
Chuang and Liang won the first set 6-3, but then crashed to a 1-6 loss in the second, before rallying to win the super tiebreak 10-5.
PAN PACIFIC OPEN
AFP, TOKYO
Seventh seed Lucie Safarova battled back to beat wild-card Belinda Bencic 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 yesterday and reach the Pan Pacific Open quarter-finals, spoiling the Swiss teenager’s upward momentum this year.
The 27-year-old Czech lost three straight games after 3-3 in the first set, but in the second she broke serve in the third game and sprinkled five aces.
In the decisive set, the left-hander broke the 17-year-old in the first and fifth games, before conceding no point in the eighth game, finishing her off with two straight aces, her ninth and 10th of the match.
Safarova next faces third seed Ana Ivanovic of Serbia in the quarter-finals.
World No. 10 Ivanovic beat former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, the 2012 and 2013 Australian Open champion, 6-3, 6-4. Azarenka is ranked 25.
In the yesterday’s other second-round matches, sixth seed Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia outlasted Coco Vandeweghe of the US 7-6 (7/5), 7-5 in 2 hours, 5 minutes, while top seed Angelique Kerber of Germany defeated Elina Svitolina of Ukraine 6-4, 6-4.
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