Taiwan’s Chan Chin-wei and Nicole Melichar crashed out of the quarter-finals of the Istanbul Cup doubles competition on Thursday, despite a spirited second-set fightback.
The Taiwanese-American duo fell to a 6-3, 7-6 (7/5) defeat to wild-cards Anett Kontaveit and Elizaveta Kulichkova in 1 hour, 22 minutes.
Chan and Melichar converted the only break point they created in the first set, but saved just one of four as the Estonian-Russian pairing took a one-set lead, despite serving up two double faults.
The Taiwanese-American duo rallied in the second set, saving two of four break points and converting two of six to force a tiebreak, but it was not enough as their opponents wrapped up the victory, winning 74 of the 134 points contested to advance to today’s semi-finals.
In the singles on Thursday, Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria was the only seed — the No. 8 and the last — to reach the quarter-finals.
Pironkova defeated Kurumi Nara of Japan 6-3, 1-6, 6-1, then learned that fourth seed Alize Cornet of France had been overhauled by Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium and fifth seed Camila Giorgi had lost an all-Italian match with Francesca Schiavone.
Flipkens won 2-6, 6-1, 6-2 and Schiavone 6-4, 7-6 (8/6) to make her first quarter-final since February.
They were due to meet yesterday.
Ukrainian qualifier Kateryna Bondarenko, who ousted Venus Williams, beat Mona Barthel of Germany 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 in their second-round match.
GASTEIN LADIES
Russian qualifier Daria Kasatkina rallied to beat former champion Julia Goerges 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 and reach her first career quarter-final at the Gastein Ladies on Thursday.
World No. 151 Kasatkina, who lost in straight sets to Goerges in Bucharest last week, came back from a break down in the second set to beat the German, who won the clay-court event in 2010.
Kasatkina next faces top seed Sara Errani, who saved a match point and won the final five games to beat Ukrainian qualifier Maryna Zanevska 6-2, 4-6, 7-5.
Leading 2-0 in the second set, the Italian lost 11 of the next 15 games.
Zanevska, who was looking to advance to her first career quarter-final, missed a match point while serving at 5-2 and failed to win another game.
Earlier, seventh seed Anna Karolina Schmiedlova of Slovakia won the first set 6-1, before Andreea Mitu pulled out. The Romanian had received treatment on her neck and shoulders after five games.
Schmiedlova next faces Annika Beck of Germany in the quarter-finals.
The final second-round match between third seed Karin Knapp of Italy and Johanna Larsson of Sweden was suspended because of a thunderstorm and was rescheduled for yesterday.
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