It was a day where the seeds tumbled in Uzbekistan. The highest profile exit was that of number two seed Carina Witthoeft who was knocked out by Croatia’s Donna Vekic (unfortunately in the headlines for the wrong reasons lately) in three sets. The up-and-coming 18 year old announced herself on the international stage by defeating a player ranked 79 places above her after taking five of eleven break opportunities. The one slight stain on her victory, that she will need to work on to progress deep into the tournament, was the fact that she committed six double faults and handed her opponent nine break point opportunities, losing her serve twice. She will now face Anna-Lena Friedsam who also dumped out a seed, number six Margarita Gasparyan.
The other seed to be put to the sword today was Katerina Siniakova who was surprised by Ukrainian qualifier Kateryna Kozlova, ranked 203 in the world. Kozlova is enjoying a fairy tale run which she will hope to prolong in the quarter finals when she comes up against Hibino, who didn’t have to strike a ball to defeat Sasnovich as her opponent retired before the start of the match.
Completing tomorrow’s quarter final lineup are number one seed Annika Beck who will face Bojana Jovanovski and Evgeniya Rodina who will take on number four seed Johanna Larsson.
