Halep and Venus into quarters, Wozniacki falls

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."
"I just couldn't execute as well as I wanted to."
"I'm getting pretty confident at this level."
But she added, "I am still young so I have to work on everything."
"So it was a good chat. I did exactly what he said after that."
- Venus moves on -
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"She has everything in her game. And it was a quick comeback from yesterday, where you have the emotions of, 'Hey, this feels like a final. But guess what, you're only in the fourth round.'"