Leylah Fernandez scored her second win in as many meetings with Zheng Qinwen to reach the Qatar Open quarter finals, upsetting the No.5 seed 7-5, 6-3 in 1 hour and 32 minutes here on Wednesday.

Fernandez had previously defeated Zheng 6-1, 4-6, 7-6 (7-3) in the second round of Monterrey 2022. This time round, she came from 3-5 down in the first set to win the match-up between the two 21-year-old grand slam finalists.

The result was Fernandez’s sixth career top 10 win, and second in the past four months following her defeat of Marketa Vondrousova in last November’s Billie Jean King Cup semi-finals.

All five of the Canadian’s previous top 10 wins had taken place either in Billie Jean King Cup action or at the 2021 US Open, where she was runner-up to Emma Raducanu.

Fernandez advanced to her fourth quarter final at WTA 1000 level or above, following the 2021 US Open, 2022 Roland Garros and 2023 Guadalajara.

Elena Rybakina, the No. 3 seed, moved into the last-eight stage by edging out Emma Navarro, the 16th seed, 6-1, 6-7 (6-8), 6-4.

Naomi Osaka got a walkover against Lesia Tsurenko.

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Danielle Collins set up a quarter final between unseeded players. Pavlyuchenkova upset No.6 seed Marketa Vondrousova 7-5, 6-3 to notch her first top 10 win since beating Aryna Sabalenka at Roland Garros 2021 (and 37th top 10 win overall).

No.32-ranked Pavlyuchenkova had lost both of her previous meetings with Vondrousova in straight sets, both in 2021.

But after falling behind 3-1 in the first set, the 32-year-old found her groove with her powerful game, thumping groundstrokes from side to side as the Wimbledon champion lapsed into passivity.

Collins improved to 2-1 overall against Katerina Siniakova with a 6-4, 6-3 victory, and advances to her first quarter final in Doha.