Naomi Osaka was given free passage through to the quarter-finals at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open after opponent Lesia Tsurenko withdrew because of injury ahead of their scheduled contest.
Osaka, who returned to the tour in January following the birth of daughter Shai last summer, is now through to the last eight at a tournament for the first time in nearly two years.
The four-time Grand Slam champion had won only one of her first four matches of the year prior to heading to Doha.
But the Japanese star has hit form in the Qatari capital, reversing her Australian Open loss to Caroline Garcia in the first round and then defeating Croat Petra Martic.
It is her best run since she reached the final of the Miami Open in April 2022, losing to Iga Swiatek.
In the quarter-finals, two-time WTA 1000 titlist Osaka will face Karolina Pliskova, who recorded her seventh win in seven consecutive days – four in Europe and three in Asia – as she beat fellow Czech Linda Noskova 3-6 7-5 6-1.
Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova’s difficult start to the year continued with a 7-5 6-3 loss to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, while Australian Open runner-up Zheng Qinwen was beaten 7-5 6-3 by former US Open runner-up Leylah Fernandez.
The result was Fernandez’s sixth career top-10 win, and second in the past four months following her defeat of Vondrousova in last November’s Billie Jean King Cup semi-finals.
Fernandez will next face either former Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina or Emma Navarro.
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