Halep through, Petkovic out in WTA Guangzhou Open

Top seed Simona Halep of Romania defeated Timea Babos of Hungary in straight sets in second-round play on Wednesday (Sep 23) in the WTA Guangzhou global Women’s Open, as all remaining seeded players advanced.

The 23-year-old Halep, who had reached the semifinals at this month’s US Open, registered a comfortable 6-4, 6-2 win over qualifier Petra Martic of Croatia while Petkovic was beaten 6-1, 6-4 by Monica Puig of Puerto Rico.

The young Czech ripped one last backhand victor up the line to finish No.1-seeded Romanian off.

Halep will meet Denisa Allertova in the last eight after she beat Bojana Jovanovski 6-3 7-6 (7-5).

Third-seeded Italian Sara Errani fought back from a set down to record a 6-7 (6/8) 6-4 6-2 victory over Chinese qualifier Kai-Lin Zhang in a match lasting two hours and 38 minutes.

The other match to go the distance was fourth seed Jelena Jankovic’s battle with Francesca Schiavone, the former getting the decisive break in the deciding set to seal a 7-5 4-6 6-4 triumph.

China’s top player Zheng Saisai, seeded eighth, downed Anett Kontaveit of Estonia 6-1, 7-6 (13/11) after taking the final set in a lengthy tiebreaker.