Former US Open tennis champion Sam Stosur continued her fine end to the season by beating Ana Ivanovic to reach the semi-finals of the Kremlin Cup in Moscow.
The Australian has had an up and down year and has dropped to 19 in the rankings but she won her second title of 2013 in Osaka last week.
Next up for the seventh seed is home hope Svetlana Kuznetsova, who knocked out second seed Roberta Vinci 6-2 6-3.
The other semi-final will be between fifth seed Simona Halep, who eased past Alisa Kleybanova 6-1 6-1, and Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, a 6-0 6-4 winner over Daniela Hantuchova.
In the men’s draw, top seed Richard Gasquet beat Teymuraz Gabashvili 6-3 6-2 to set up a last-four meeting with Ivo Karlovic.
The 6ft 10in Croatian ended the run of 17-year-old Karen Khachanov with a 6-4 6-0 victory.
Defending champion Andreas Seppi was 5-2 up on Edouard Roger-Vasselin when the Frenchman retired and he faces Mikhail Kukushkin, who won the battle of the Kazakh qualifiers against Andrey Golubev.
* World No 1 Rafael Nadal has pulled out of next week’s Swiss Indoors tournament in Basle citing fatigue.