Wednesday at the Qatar Total Open saw all seeded players that were in action advance to the quarterfinals, including top seed Simona Halep and third seed Angelique Kerber, while Karolina Pliskova was forced to withdraw from the event due to a viral illness, being replaced by her twin sister Kristyna Pliskova, who lost her second-round match to Elise Mertens.
Halep ensured rise to No.2 in the WTA rankings by winning her opener against Lesia Tsurenko 6-2 6-3, while Kerber won her 600th career match by beating Anett Kontaveit, to whom she had lost 18 straight games before today’s encounter in Doha.