British No 1 Katie Boulter was knocked out of the China Open by American Coco Gauff in straight sets 7-5 6-2.
Fourth seed Gauff will next face the winner of Japan’s Naomi Osaka and compatriot Katie Volynets for a place in the quarter-finals.
Third-ranked Jessica Pegula responded to losing a marathon first set to rally for a 6-7 (9-11) 6-1 6-2 win over Veronika Kudermetova in the third round.
Pegula has won 17 of her last 19 matches, including defending her title in Toronto and making finals at Cincinnati and the US Open, where her only defeats have come to Aryna Sabalenka, the top-seeded player in Beijing.
“Every time I’ve played her, it’s always been really tough,” Pegula said. “After I came back from 2-5 in the first set, I kind of knew what to do, I just had to execute in the next couple sets. I’m happy I was able to kind of figure that out and finally help my head-to-head against her.”
The American made three service breaks in the first set, but also lost three of her own, with Kudermetova prevailing in a lung-busting 20-point tiebreaker to take the lead.
The loss of the tiebreaker seemed to spur Pegula to life as she found her groundstroke range to break her Russian opponent’s serve twice in each set to take the match in just over two-and-a-half hours. It was Pegula’s first win against the 39th-ranked Kudermetova in three attempts.
Pegula will play the 15th-seeded Paola Badosa in the fourth round after the Spaniard beat Serbian Rebecca Sramkova 7-5 7-5.
What’s coming up on Sky Sports Tennis in October?
- Shanghai Masters – ATP 1000 (October 2-13 – Jack Draper in action)
- Wuhan Open – WTA 1000 (October 6-12 – Emma Raducanu in action)
- Almaty Open, Kazakhstan – ATP 250 (October 14-20)
- Stockholm Open, Sweden – ATP 250 (October 14-20)
- European Open, Antwerp – ATP 250 (October 14-20)
- Japan Open, Osaka – WTA 250 (October 14-20)
- Ningbo Open, China – WTA 500 (October 14-20)
- Erste Bank Open, Vienna – ATP 500 (October 21-27)
- Swiss Indoors, Basel – ATP 500 (October 21-27)
- Guangzhou Open, China – WTA 250 (October 21-27)
- Toray Pan Pacific Open Tennis, Tokyo – WTA 500 (October 21-27)
Sky Sports+ has officially launched and will be integrated into Sky TV, streaming service NOW and the Sky Sports app, giving Sky Sports customers access to over 50 per cent more live sport this year at no extra cost. Find out more here.