Timea Babos of Hungary bested Stefanie Voegele of Switzerland in a tight quarterfinal match at the WTA 125K Taipei tournament: 6-3, 7-5. The fourth seed from Hungary has not dropped a set in the tournament. Babos, ranked 84, has one WTA title to her credit – Monterrey in 2012. Her best results this year were reaching the final at Marrakesh and the quarterfinals at Tianjin. Voegele, seeded seventh, is currently ranked 122 – although she has been ranked as high as 42 (November 2013). In 2015, she has not made it past the early rounds except for this tournament and reaching the semifinals at Luxembourg.
The match was evenly played. In the first nine games of the match, each player held serve comfortably. Voegele dropped only two points in her first four service games. Both Babos and Voegele won 74% of their service points in the set. The two players looked for opportunities to come to net to close out points. There were no break point opportunities until the tenth game with Voegele serving. Babos was able to take advantage of the fourth set point with a beautiful backhand passing shot.
The second set also started with each player easily holding serve for the first five games. Voegele came back from a 0-30 deficit on the strength of big serves to hold in the sixth game. In the next game, Babos survived a couple of breakpoints to stay on serve. Babos was able to take the twelfth game (and the match) aided by another excellent passing shot and three unforced errors by Voegele.
Misaki Doi of Japan, the number one seed, defeated Luksika Kumkhum from Thailand in straight sets: 6-3, 6-4. Doi was able to covert both of her breakpoint chances, while Kumkhum was unable to capitalize on any of her four opportunities. The twenty-four–old Doi has recently won the Luxembourg title and is at her highest career ranking of 60. Kumkhum is currently ranked 195 although she has been ranked as high as 85. Her most notable win was shocking Petra Kvitova in the first round of the 2014 Australian Open.
Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium, the fifth seed, also moved on to the semifinals with a win over Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan, the second seed. Shvedova, coming off a title at Hua Hin last week, was forced to retire at the end of the third game in the second set after winning the first set 6-4.
In the last quarterfinal of the day, Evgeniya Rodina of Russia defeated Chang Liu of China in three sets. Liu, ranked 231 and new to the WTA tour, won a close first set 6-4. However, the third seed Russian went on to win the second set easily 6-2. Lui challenged Rodina in the third set, but the Russian prevailed 6-4.
