Thursday 30 April 2015 17:46, UK
Tereza Smitkova suffered a heart-breaking second-round defeat at the J&T Banka Prague Open just hours after dumping number two seed Lucie Safarova out of the tournament.
The 20-year-old Czech claimed her maiden top-20 victory when she beat compatriot Safarova in a first-round clash delayed by Tuesday's rain, but later allowed a 5-1 third-set lead and a series of match points to slip away to lose 3-6 6-4, 6-7 (9-11) to compatriot Lucie Hradecka, who had earlier dispensed with Russia's Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-1 7-5.
Top seed Karolina Pliskova had to come from behind to see off Tsvetana Pironkova 3-6 6-3 7-6 (7-1), while Belgium's Yanina Wickmayer needed almost three hours to squeeze past Serbia's Aleksandra Krunic 7-5 6-7 (7-3) 7-5.
France's Alize Cornet, seeded five, went out to Denisa Allertova with the Czech bouncing back to win 3-6 7-5 6-2, and there will be another wild card entry in the quarter-finals after Klara Koukalova secured a 6-4 2-6 6-2 win over Croatian qualifier Ana Konjuh.
Katerina Siniakova's progress proved far more straightforward as she defeated Polona Hercog 6-1 6-4, and there were similarly untroubled passages for Barbora Strycova and Danka Kovinic as Elena Vesnina and Shuai Zhang fell by the wayside.
Pliskova will meet Allertova in the last eight with Kovinic facing Wickmayer, Siniakova taking on Strycova and Koukalova going head-to-head with Hradecka.
