Hsieh Su-wei became the latest seed to crash out at the Malaysian Open yesterday, while fellow Taiwanese Chang Kai-chen could not follow up her shock singles victory over top seed and world No. 10 Roberta Vinci on Tuesday as she exited the doubles.
Seventh seed Hsieh paid for a slow start to her second-round singles match against Kristina Kucova of Slovakia as she fell to a 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 defeat in 1 hour, 50 minutes on Center Court at the Kuala Lumpur Golf & Country Club.
World No. 139 Kucova saved nine of 11 break points and converted four of 12, winning 92 of the 174 points contested to oust the Taiwanese world No. 69 and advance to a quarter-final against either second seed Elina Svitolina of Ukraine or Japanese qualifier Risa Ozaki, who are due to play their second-round match today.
Svitolina is one of only three seeded players left in the Malaysian capital, alongside No. 6 Eugenie Bouchard of Canada and No. 3 Sabine Lisicki of Germany.
Bouchard cruised into the quarter-finals with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Kurumi Nara of Japan in just 65 minutes in the second match on Center Court.
The world No. 52 did not face a single break point and converted four of 10 to set up a last-eight clash with Taiwan’s Chang or Cagla Buyukakcay of Turkey.
Lisicki found it tougher going against Czech qualifier Barbora Krejcikova, taking 1 hour, 45 minutes to complete a 7-5, 6-3 victory.
Also advancing to the quarter-finals yesterday was Wang Qiang, who defeated fellow Chinese Duan Ying-ying 6-4, 6-4.
In the doubles quarter-finals, Chang and Oksana Kalashnikova fell to a 6-4, 3-6, 10-5 loss to top-seeded Chinese duo Liang Chen and Wang Yafan.
In the semi-finals, the top seeds face Katarzyna Piter of Poland and Maryna Zanevska of Ukraine, who ousted fourth-seeded Russian pairing Marina Melnikova and Alexandra Panova 6-2, 6-7 (2/7), 10-8.
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