Halep, Venus move into qtrs

INDIAN WELLS, United States, Mar 14 (AFP): World No. 1 Simona Halep and Venus Williams punched their tickets to the Indian Wells quarter-finals, while Caroline Wozniacki suffered another exit at the hands of Russia's rising star Daria Kasatkina.
Halep breezed through her fourth round match with a 7-5, 6-1 win over China's Wang Qiang and eighth seed Venus Williams faced a stern test from Anastasija Sevastova but held on for a 7-6 (8/6), 6-4 victory.
The 20-year-old Kasatkina, who has beaten all four reigning Grand Slam champions in the past year, continued her giant-killing form with a 6-4, 7-5 shock victory over world No. 2 Wozniacki.
Kasatkina recorded her second straight win over Wozniacki, having also beaten the Australian Open champ at the St. Petersburg tournament last month.
"I'm playing my best matches against the best players," she said. "But if you want to be on the top, you have to beat the top players. So quite a simple rule."
Kasatkina improved to 11-6 on the WTA Tour season as she seeks to better her quarter-final appearance here in 2016.
Meanwhile, Venus Williams survived a difficult fourth round test to beat Latvia's Sevastova 7-6 (8/6), 6-4 just one day after beating sister Serena in a third round contest. It was the first time Venus has beaten Serena since 2014 in Montreal.
She and Serena usually meet later in the draw in the semis or the championship match.
"It was not an easy match to figure out," Venus said of her victory Tuesday.