No. 2 seed Elina Svitolina suffered a shock loss in her Linz opener, while top-seeded Karolina Muchova clinched a routine win to progress into the quarterfinal.
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After a first-round bye at the Austrian WTA 500 event, the Ukrainian tennis star exited in the round-of-16 after world No. 83 Anna Blinkova handed her a 6-4 6-4 defeat.
Throughout the match, there wasn't much consistency on either side.
But when it mattered the most, the Russian was the one who managed to come up bigger and that ultimately sealed the deal.
In the first set, a total of seven breaks was seen.
After twice recovering from a break down and reducing the deficit to 4-5, Svitolina lost her serve for the fourth time in the first set in the 10th game as Blinkova sealed the opener.
Down by a set, the Ukrainian bounced back by breaking the Russian in the first game of the second set but then dropped her serve in the fourth and eighth games as the world No. 83 went 5-3 up.
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Blinkova didn't manage to serve out for the match in the ninth game but broke Svitolina again in the 10th game when the Ukrainian was serving to stay in the match.
Muchova didn't allow any upsets in her opener
The Linz event lost the No. 2 seed but their top seed Muchova routinely handled the business as she ousted Sara Sorribes Tormo 6-2 6-3.
In both sets, the Czech tennis star earned two breaks and that was enough for her to get the job done.
"I think you saw some silly shots. Sometimes it's too many options. I'm trying to work on it to pick the right shots. It's fun, but sometimes ... Hopefully no one saw what I just did!" the No. 1 seed said in her on-court interview.
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In the Linz quarterfinal, Muchova plays against sixth-seeded Anastasia Potapova.
