KUALA LUMPUR, March 2 — Slovakia’s Kristina Kucova was made to work hard to pull an upset over former champion Hsieh Su-Wei today before advancing to the quarterfinal of the 2016 BMW Malaysian Open.

The 25-year-old booked her first quarterfinal appearance since July 2014 in Bucharest after defeating the 69th-ranked Taiwanese 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 in the second round held at the Kuala Lumpur Golf & Country Club. Kucova, ranked 139th in the world, had earlier beaten Swiss Stefanie Voegele 7-6(4), 6-4 in the first round on Monday.

“I played really good in the first set, but in the second, after getting two in front, I made mistakes as I was eager to make it 3-0. Then, Hsieh started to play really well and come back in the match.

“I was struggling with the heat but the short break before the third set helped me to cool down a little bit and I managed to play as good as the first set,” said Kucova, who aims to break into the world top 100 for the first time this season.

Kucova will either meet second seed Elina Svitolina of Ukraine or Japan’s Risa Ozaki in the quarterfinal. The second-round match between Svitolina and Ozaki will be held tomorrow.

In the other match, as expected former world number five Eugenie Bouchard of Canada eased through to the last eight after notching another straightforward win against Japan’s Kurumi Nara 6-1, 6-2.

Sixth-seeded Bouchard said no match was easy and she was trying to play aggressively to collect every single point.

Third seed Sabine Lisicki of Germany beat qualifier Barbora Krejcikova of Czech Republic 7-5, 6-3 in one hour and 45 minutes.

“It was humid and I did not like the way I started the match. I was not serving well and the ball was travelling differently in the air. I had to adjust to these difficult conditions.

“I need to take things step by step and improve gradually… I believe at some point everything will come together in the tournament,” said Lisicki, ranked 31st in the world.

Lisicki will play Britain’s Naomi Broady or qualifier Yang Zhaoxuan of China in the quarterfinals on Friday.

Women’s singles second round

Kristina Kucova (SVK) bt Hsieh Su-Wei (TPE) 6-1, 3-6, 6-3; Eugenie Bouchard (CAN) bt Kurumi Nara (JPN) 6-1, 6-2; Wang Qiang (CHN) bt Duan Ying-Ying (CHN) 6-4, 6-4; Sabine Lisicki (GER) bt Barbora Krejcikova (CZE) 7-5, 6-3.

Women’s doubles first round

Zarina Diyas (KAZ)/Xu Yi-Fan (CHN) bt Darija Jurak (CRO)/Nicole Melichar (USA) 7-6(5), 6-1.

Women’s doubles quarterfinal

Katarzyna Piter (POL)/Maryna Zanevska (UKR) bt Marina Melnikova (RUS)/Alexandra Panova (RUS) 6-2, 6-7(2), 10-8. — Bernama