A WTA international level stop on this year’s calendar, the 2015 Guangzhou Open is one of two tournaments to be played during the second week of the Asian swing. On day four, it was quarter finals day in Guangzhou and it was an action-filled day on both the singles and doubles side.

Wickmayer, Jankovic, Errani and Allertova Advance to Final Four

Starting off the day on Centre Court was defending champion Monica Niculescu. The Romanian began her title defence in dramatic fashion — defeating Yulia Putintseva in a gruelling, three hour battle under the scorching Chinese sun. In the next round, Niculescu comfortably beat Rebecca Peterson of Sweden to reach the quarterfinals. In fact, the defending champion seemed to have all the luck on her side in Guangzhou, as a funny moment on match point where her racquet flew out of her hand after hitting the winning shot was enough to get her over the line. Her opponent was Yanina Wickmayer. Wickmayer has really struggled in the last few years with injuries and consistency but just recently, she has begun to find some of the form that got her to a career high ranking of number twelve in the world. After winning the WTA International event in Tokyo last week, Wickmayer traveled to Guangzhou with a five match winning streak. That winning streak quickly stretched to seven wins in a row as the Belgian number one defeated Magda Linette — whom she played in the Tokyo final just a few days prior — and WTA rising star Monica Puig in straight sets. In this encounter, it was Wickmayer who came out all guns blazing. Niculescu’s unorthodox playing style hardly troubled her as she completed a comprehensive 6-2, 6-2 win in 71 minutes.

Meanwhile on Court 1, Jelena Jankovic played Svetlana Kuznetsova. Jankovic is coming off of a disappointing performance at the U.S. Open, where she lost in the first round. However, the former world number one has regrouped nicely to defeat Elena Vesnina and Francesca Schiavone en route to this stage of the tournament. Kuznetsova is in the same boat. The two-time Grand Slam champion injured herself in Washington D.C. and wasn’t able to regroup from there. After losing in the first round of the U.S. Open, Kuznetsova came to China with a fresh start and put her injury behind her. The Russian defeated Daniela Hantuchova and Urszula Radwanska in straight sets to set up a quarter final clash with Jelena Jankovic. It was Jankovic who started the better of the two, winning the opening set 6-2. The second set was a much tighter affair as both players were exchanging breaks before the Serbian managed to hold her nerve and serve at 6-5 to win the match 6-2, 7-5.

That left the number one seed Simona Halep and the number three seed Sara Errani to play their respective quarter finals for a spot in the semi finals.

Errani faced off against the last Chinese player left in the singles draw, Zheng Saisai. The Italian number three has had to fight off two Chinese players in Duan Ying-Ying and Zhang Kai-Lin both in three sets, just to get to this stage of the competition. Zheng has had a more comfortable road to the quarter finals — the Chinese number one defeated both Aleksandra Krunic and Anett Kontaveit in straight sets. However, in this match, it was all Errani. The Italian was dominating almost all of the exchanges from the back of the court, and was able to force errors from her Chinese counterpart. Errani completed a clinical 6-1, 6-0 win to advance to the semi finals.

The last singles match to be played was between number one seed Simona Halep and Denisa Allertova. Halep, has had a fairly straight forward road to the quarter finals. After defeating Petra Martic and Timea Babos in clinical fashion, she was the overwhelming favourite against Denisa Allertova. Allertova, has been the dark horse of the tournament. Her consistency was able to ware down Anna-Lena Friedsam and Bojana Jovanovski in straight sets, and was going into this match with the world number two with nothing to lose. Allertova sure played that way as she came out swinging and it was clear that Halep wasn’t at her best. After trading breaks, it was the Czech who was able to capitalize on a break point that would eventually win her the set 6-4. The number one seed’s woes continued as she wasn’t getting any better and her opponent was only growing in confidence. Allertova quickly jumped out to a set and a 5-1 lead but Halep managed to get one of the breaks back to attempt a come back. But in the end, the Romanian’s unforced errors really hurt her, and Allertova completed the upset with a 6-4, 6-3 win.

Doubles Results

On the doubles side, the unseeded and all-Chinese pairing of Xu Shilin and You Xiaodi advanced to the semi finals. Their opponents will be Klaudia Jans-Ignacik and Anastasia Rodionova who defeated the all-Serbian team of Jankovic and Krunic. On the other side of the draw, number one seeds Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza played this first match of the week in Guangzhou and first match since winning this year’s U.S. Open title. Hingis and Mirza showed why they’re at the top of women’s doubles at the moment, defeating Friedsam and Niculescu in straight sets.

Headlining Semifinals Day

On semi final Friday at the 2015 Guangzhou Open, Denisa Allertova will play Sara Errani and Jelena Jankovic will play Yanina Wickmayer. The winner of those two matches will get a chance to taste victory in Guangzhou for the first time on Saturday. Also in action on Friday, will be Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza. Hingis and Mirza are bidding for their sixth title of the season, and they just started playing together this past March.