AUCKLAND: Second seed Petra Martic became the first big-name casualty at the Auckland Classic when she was bundled out by France’s Alize Cornet in a three-set marathon on Wednesday.

Eighth seed Caroline Garcia also lost her second-round match while third seed Amanda Anisimova cruised through to the quarter-finals on a limited day three of the tournament.

Martic, the world number 15, lived up to her senior status in the first set against Cornet but could not maintain the momentum as her opponent fought back to win 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, sealing the outcome with three aces back-to-back in the final game.

“What a match,” said Cornet, who is ranked 57th, as she left the court.

Cornet switched coaches to Martic’s former mentor Sandra Zanieswka during the off-season and said she initially had trouble adjusting to her new pre-match instruction to be aggressive.

“It was going out of my comfort zone and in the first set I didn’t manage to do it, but finally I found my rhythm and was playing much better. Thank God my serve helped me,” she said with her only three aces coming when she was down 15-30 in the final game.

Cornet, who also rallied from a set down to win her first-round match against Ysaline Bonaventure, will meet Jessica Pegula in the quarter-finals after the American had a comfortable 6-2, 6-2 second-round win over Tamara Zidansek.

The 18-year-old Anisimova needed only 73 minutes to put away former top-10 player Daria Kasatkina in the featured singles match in the night session.

Anisimova made 32 unforced errors, twice as many as the Russian, but was still far too strong with her all-round play.

She will play Eugenie Bouchard in the quarter-finals after the Canadian upset Garcia 6-4, 6-4.

Both are former top-five stars looking to get their way back into the top echelon with Bouchard, the 2014 Wimbledon finalist, now as low as 262 in the World while Garcia is ranked 46th.

Meanwhile, Serena Williams and Caroline Wozniacki prolonged their one-time-only doubles partnership when they advanced to the semi-finals of the Auckland Classic.

Playing together for the first time in their careers, Serena and Wozniacki beat top-seeded Johanna Larsson and Caroline Dolehide 6-2, 6-1.

The pair will not play together at the Australian Open, which will be Wozniacki’s final Grand Slam tournament before retirement. So the Auckland tournament offers the only chance for fans to savour the sight of two former No. 1 players playing as a partnership.

The match against Larsson and Dolehide, both accomplished doubles players, was the toughest test of their partnership. Larsson has 13 doubles titles and Dolehide has been a US Open doubles semi-finalist.

Wozniacki will play Lauren Davis in the second round of singles on Thursday while Williams will play Christina McHale.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2020