MOSCOW (AP) β Lucie Safarova grabbed the last spot at the WTA finals Thursday after Carla Suarez Navarro lost to a qualifier at the Kremlin Cup.
Suarez Navarro could have qualified for the season-ending tournament in Singapore by reaching the final in Moscow but was beaten 6-1, 6-2 by Russia’s Daria Kasatkina in the quarterfinals.
Suarez Navarro landed just 56 percent of her first serves as she was dismissed in less than an hour by Kasatkina, who at 104th in the world is ranked 90 places below her Spanish opponent.
Suarez Navarro said she had “a really bad day” against Kasatkina but denied she was feeling the pressure of having to qualify for next week’s finals.
“I don’t think about Singapore at all this match,” she said. “I just tried to play good, to be focused on my game, but she played good tactically and I couldn’t be aggressive.”
Czech player Safarova had lost in the first round in Moscow to reigning champion Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
In Singapore, she joins Simona Halep, Garbine Muguruza, Maria Sharapova, Petra Kvitova, Agnieszka Radwanska, Angelique Kerber and Flavia Pennetta.
In the Moscow semifinals, Kasatkina will face one of two fellow Russians, either reigning Kremlin Cup champion Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova or Margarita Gasparyan.
The other semifinal will pit Russia’s Svetlana Kuznetsova against Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko.
Two-time Grand Slam champion Kuznetsova had a tough start against Latvian qualifier Anastasija Sevastova 5-7, 6-1, 6-3. Tsurenko had a walkover when third-seeded Pennetta withdrew Wednesday citing a leg injury.
In the men’s event, Marin Cilic of Croatia, seeded first, struggled with his powerful serve during a tough second-round match with Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin. Cilic fought back hard after losing the second set to go 4-0 up in the decider and eventually clinch the match 7-6 (3), 3-6, 6-3.
That sets up a quarterfinal meeting with either eighth-seeded Mikhail Kukushkin or Russian Andrei Kuznetsov.
France’s Lucas Pouille won his second-round match against Spain’s Daniel Gimeno-Traver 6-1, 7-6 (5). He meets second-seeded Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain in the quarterfinals.
