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Watson books place in first WTA Tour quarter final

Maria Sharapova was inconsistent from the baseline in her hard-fought win over Renata Voracova © Getty Images

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Britain's Heather Watson has reached her first WTA Tour quarter final after sending ninth seed Carla Suarez Navarro crashing out of the ASB Classic in Auckland.

Watson needed to qualify for the tournament in New Zealand but the 18-year-old has looked in supreme form in all her matches and a fifth consecutive victory sets up a last-eight clash with China's Shuai Peng.

The first set was a tight affair, with both players making a host of unforced errors. Watson dropped serve three times but rallied to edge the tiebreak 7-5. Navarro, ranked 119 places higher than her opponent, capitulated in the second set as Watson found her range with some classy winners and her achievement betters her appearance in the last-16 in Eastbourne last year.

Top seed Maria Sharapova was not at her best as she battled to a 6-3 7-5 win against Renata Voracova. Sharapova fought back from 3-1 down to take the first at a canter before Voracova hit back to take a 5-3 lead in the second. However, with a third set on the horizon, she buckled under the pressure and Sharapova took full advantage, reeling off four games in a row to book a third round date with Greta Arn.

"On days like this you just have to be happy to be playing another match," Sharapova said. "It was a little bit sloppy.

"It was up and down, and I adjusted when I had to, I didn't serve that great, but I felt I stepped up on the big points. These are the type of matches, when you haven't been playing for a while, where you just have to get through."

Defending champion Yanina Wickmayer was forced to dig deep during a three-set tussle with Sabine Lisicki, the Belgian finally prevailing 6-2 3-6 6-2.

Svetlana Kuznetsova's Australian Open preparations were dealt a blow when she was sent packing by Shuai. The third seed will head straight to Sydney to reassess her game after succumbing to a 2-6 6-4 6-4 defeat.

At the Brisbane International, fourth seed Marion Bartoli stopped the trend of high-profile casualties with a three-set victory over Iveta Benesova. Bartoli put a second-set wobble behind her to power through the final set in 24 minutes, leaving her the highest seed remaining in the tournament.

Promising youngster Andrea Petkovic showed her potential with a 6-0 6-1 demolition of home favourite Jelena Dokic. Dokic, a Wimbledon semi-finalist in 2000, is attempting to once again reach the upper echelons of the women's game, and the 27-year-old admits she has her work cut out.

"I don't like making excuses but when you play a Top 35 player, you have to play great from the first point, and I didn't," Dokic said. "I felt like my first match was good here so I take a lot of confidence from that, but I've got a lot of work to do. There's still some time before my next tournament in Sydney."

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