The win against the Romanian top seed gave the 22-year-old, ranked 74 in the world, only her second victory against a top 10 player after she defeated Carla Suarez Navarro in the first round of the U.S. Open recently.
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First up on Court Two, Romania’s defending champion Monica Niculescu – seeded sixth here – eased past Swede Rebecca Peterson in straight sets as she set up a 6-3 6-2 win to reach the last eight. Denisa Allertova of the Czech Republic defeated Serbia’s Bojana Jovanovski 6-3, 7-6 (7/5). Puig had upset number two seed Andrea Petkovic of Germany in the first round.
From there Halep’s class showed, however, and she won seven successive games to clinch the match 6-4 6-0 in an hour and six minutes.
Second-seeded Petkovic, however, was eliminated by the 21-year old rising star Monica Puig from Puerto Rico 6-1, 6-4.
Players are battling for prize money of $250,000.
Third-seeded Sara Errani of Italy and fourth-seeded Jelena Jankovic made the second round but were made to work hard by their opponents.
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China’s top player Zheng Saisai, seeded eighth, downed Anett Kontaveit of Estonia 6-1, 7-6 (13/11) after taking the final set in a lengthy tiebreaker.
