THERE was a sense of empathy coming from one side of the net to the other when injury-prone Bianca Andreescu shook hands with second seed Beatriz Haddad Maia after just three games. Haddad Maia suffered a left back injury and had to retire at 0-3 down in the opening set of the pair’s Pan Pacific Open Round of 16 match in Tokyo.

While Andreescu has unfortunately been there and done that plenty of times before – with injury curtailing a large portion of the 24-year-old’s career – this time it was the world number 10 who was having to withdraw and grant the Canadian wildcard safe passage into the last eight.

“I’ve been in her position many times and it’s the worst feeling ever,” Andreescu said post-match. “I really wish her a speedy recovery – the season is very long and we’re all dealing with stuff all the time, but I hope this doesn’t bring her down.”

Always happy to lend some friendly advice, Andreescu said there were a variety of ways with how to deal with injury setbacks.

“There are many ways to cope with it,” she said. “At first, it was very hard to accept, and that was the toughest part for me. Trying to stay positive and not giving up, because there were many moments when I wanted to. But I truly love this sport, so that was a motivation for me to keep going.”

Of the 17 points played in the match, Andreescu won 12 of them, and even managed to serve two aces and two double faults in that time. She won all seven of her first serve points from the limited encounter. Now she will head into the last eight where she will play either ninth seed Katie Boulter or lucky loser Kyoka Okamura who face off today.

Three of the four top half draw matches were completed overnight as well, with eighth seed and fellow Canadian Leylah Fernandez stamping her ticket into the quarter finals. She fought past a comeback from Frenchwoman Varvara Gracheva after bagelling her in the first set to win 6-0 3-6 7-5. She likely will tackle top seed and tournament favourite Qinwen Zheng, who meets local hope Moyuka Uchijima in the Round of 16.

In other results, sixth seeded Russian Diana Shnaider was far too good for Bulgarian Viktoriya Tomova 6-2 6-2, and will now face Japanese qualifier Sayaka Ishii. The local hope came from behind to end the run of Turkish qualifier Zeynep Sonmez in three sets, 4-6 6-2 6-3.

AROUND THE TOUR

Serbian Olga Danilovic produced the upset of the tournament overnight in Guangzhou with a demolition job on French fifth seed Diane Parry. The world number 86 – who had sneakily won 33 of 52 matches in 2024 coming into the WTA 250 event – won 6-1 6-0 in 75 minutes to fly into the quarter finals.

The other seed in action was Spaniard Jessica Bouzas Maneiro who overcame Chinese teenager Han Shi in straight sets 6-3 6-4, while in the all-Chinese clash, Xiyu Wang – ranked 99th in the world – edged out the 135th ranked Sijia Wei in three sets, 3-6 6-0 7-5 in a topsy-turvy match. Italian Lucia Bronzetti was too good for Jaqueline Cristian in the other match.