WUHAN, China — Johanna Konta of Britain upset top-seeded Simona Halep 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 to advance to the quarterfinals of the Wuhan Open Wednesday. Konta, who came into the Wuhan tournament 66th in the rankings, stormed back to win the last six games of the third set and will face Venus Williams in the quarterfinals. “It was two hours and 17 minutes of very, very tough tennis for me,” Konta said. Venus hit five aces and saved three of four break points to see off Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain 6-3, 6-4. Venus and Konta will be facing each other for the first time. In the day's first upset, Roberta Vinci beat defending champion and third-seeded Petra Kvitova 7-6 (3), 6-2. The 15th-seeded Italian saved five of seven break points and next faces eighth-seeded Karolina Pliskova, who defeated Elina Svitolina 2-6, 6-4, 6-4. Also, fifth-seeded Garbine Muguruza rallied to beat ninth-seeded Ana Ivanovic 4-6, 6-1, 6-0. Muguruza will next face Anna Karolina Schmiedlova who beat Kristina Mladenovic 6-4, 6-2. Vesely advances Sixth-seeded Jiri Vesely advanced to the quarterfinals of the Shenzhen Open by beating Zhizhen Zhang of China 6-2, 6-3 Wednesday. Vesely will next face top-seeded Tomas Berdych, who defeated Austin Krajicek of the US 7-5, 6-3. Simone Bolelli of Italy qualified for his seventh quarterfinal match of the season after eighth-seeded Victor Estrella Burgos retired with a back injury while trailing 6-4, 4-0. Tommy Robredo will face Bolelli in the quarterfinals after eliminating Hiroki Moriya of Japan 7-5, 6-3. Beck in quarterfinals In Uzbekistan, top-seeded Annika Beck of Germany reached the quarterfinals of the Tashkent Open Wednesday with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Jana Cepelova of Slovakia. Beck's win sets up a quarterfinal with Bojana Jovanovski, who beat Aleksandra Krunic 6-4, 6-3 in an all-Serbian second-round match. Second-seeded Carina Witthoeft of Germany is out after she was beaten 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 by Croatia's Donna Vekic, whose reward is a quarterfinal against another German, Anna-Lena Friedsam. Fifth-seeded Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic lost 7-6 (4), 6-3 to Ukrainian qualifier Kateryna Kozlova, while sixth-seeded Margarita Gasparyan of Russia was beaten 6-3, 6-4 by Friedsam. Besides Beck, the only other seeded player left in the draw is Sweden's Johanna Larsson, the fourth seed. She cruised past Uzbekistani wildcard Nigina Abduraimova 6-2, 6-2. Larsson's quarterfinal opponent is Russian Evgenia Rodina, who beat Kazakhstan's Yaroslava Shvedova 6-4, 7-6 (4). Meanwhile, defending champion Joao Sousa of Portugal scored a commanding 6-2, 6-2 victory over Poland's Michal Przysiezny to advance into the quarters. Becker upsets Chardy In Kuala Lumpur, German Benjamin Becker persevered through early struggles to outlast his sixth seeded French rival Jeremy Chardy 5-7, 6-1, 7-5 in Kuala Lumpur Wednesday at the Malaysian Open, which sees the 34-year-old advance into his first ATP World Tour quarterfinal of the season. — Agencies
