It was a dramatic day of quarter-final action in Melbourne as the seeds continued to suffer in the women’s event, while the men’s draw saw some marathon matches.
Defending champion Melody Francis went out at the hands of Amanda Landers-Murphy, who now meets fellow Kiwi Kylie Lindsay for a place in the final. Meanwhile Wales’ Deon Saffery pulled back from two games down to oust third seed Liu Tsz-Ling (and at 18-16 in the third Deon must surely have saved some match balls) to guarantee an unseeded finalist in the top half of the draw after Korea’s Song Sun-Mi beat yesterday’s giant-killer Megan Craig in straight games.
A Kiwi finalist is assured from the bottom half of the men’s draw too, but Kashif Shuja and Campbell Grayson both needed the full five games to progress, second seed Grayson took 113 minutes to see off local favourite Rex Hedrick.
Top seed Nafiizwan Adnan faces Austria’s Aqeel Rehman in the other semi-final.
