Good night and good morning as Muguruza wins late Dubai duel
Garbine Muguruza beat CiCi Bellis 6-3, 7-5 in the Dubai Championships on Wednesday.
DUBAI (AFP) - Defending champion and top seed Elina Svitolina toiled for more than two hours to reach the Dubai quarter-finals while second seed Garbine Muguruza had to wait until 2 a.m. to complete her opening victory.
Play ran exceptionally late at the event, with lengthy, slow-moving matches to blame.
Svitolina took two and a quarter hours to overcome stubborn resistance from China s Wang Qiang 6-1, 5-7, 6-2.
Muguruza, the runner-up in Qatar last weekend, had to wait out a three-hour epic as Daria Kasatkina beat British seventh seed Johanna Konta 4-6, 7-6 (8/6), 6-2 before the Spanish second seed got on court in the early hours of Thursday.
But Muguruza at least then picked up the pace to defeat American CiCi Bellis 6-3, 7-5, a match which took one and three-quarter hours and ended just before 2 a.m.
Svitolina had to save nine of 11 break points against world number 46 Wang who entered the field after the withdrawal of Petra Kvitova, the Qatar champion.
"I was a little bit angry at myself that I didn t bring my best game in the end of the second set. I had to accept and bounce back," Svitolina said.
"But I was very happy the way I was playing. In the end, the win is the win."
Konta, the first ever British woman to win a round in Dubai, was unable to get past Russian Kasatkina.
"I can only really look back on this match, and take the good things. I did do a lot of good things, (and I can) then learn from the things and try to do better," Konta said.
Karolina Pliskova and Angelique Kerber advanced to set up a battle of ex-world number ones in the last eight.
Czech Pliskova, the third seed, beat Carla Suarez Navarro 5-7, 6-2, 6-4, while Germany s Kerber dispatched Italian qualifier Sara Errani 6-4, 6-2.
Sixth seed Kerber, who won the Sydney title in January before reaching the Australian Open semi-finals, leads the series with her Czech opponent 6-3, winning their last two matches.
"It was a tricky match, especially because she was playing well," Kerber said after taking the win over Errani on a secondary showcourt at the Aviation Club.
"I don t care which court I play on. It s always important now to win the matches and focus more on my opponent, on my game, on the next round."
Japan s Naomi Osaka, the next opponent for Svitolina, beat Anett Kontaveit of Estonia 6-2, 7-6 (7/5), while French fifth seed Caroline Garcia put out Ekaterina Makarova 6-4, 6-2.
Russian Elena Vesnina upset Roland Garros champion and fourth seed Jelena Ostapenko 6-1, 7-6 (8/6).
"It was a weird match. At the beginning, everything was going my way. I was playing very clean. Jelena was missing a lot of shots," Vesnina said.
"In the second set, she got back. She is a top 10 player, she is a Grand Slam champion. Of course, she will rebound, she will change something in her game."
Pliskova, who headed the rankings from mid-July to mid-September, needed a fightback against Suarez Navarro after losing the opening set to her 27th-ranked opponent.
"I was not playing the best tennis today, we were both a little bit struggling," Pliskova said after finishing with 11 aces, six double-faults and losing her serve five times.
