Ons Jabeur overcame qualifier Wakane Sonobe to reach the Abu Dhabi quarterfinal, while Paula Badosa suffered a loss in her opening match in the United Arab Emirates tournament.
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After beating Jelena Ostapenko in two sets on Tuesday, the Tunisian returned to the court today and beat the 17-year-old rising Japanese star 6-3 6-3.
By doing so, the three-time Grand Slam runner-up set up a quarterfinal showdown against Elena Rybakina.
After Jabeur, Badosa - who was seeded at No. 2 and had a first-round bye - came out on the court.
But unlike the Tunisian, the Spaniard didn't enjoy a good day at the office as Linda Noskova handed her a 6-4 6-1 defeat.
When Jabeur meets Rybakina in Abu Dhabi, it will be their sixth meeting.
When they met the last time, the Tunisian former world No. 2 ended on the winning side but the Kazakh still leads their head-to-head 3-2.
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On the other side, Noskova awaits the winner of the match between No. 6 seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Magda Linette.
How Jabeur, Noskova won their respective Abu Dhabi round-of-16 matches?
After blowing her first break, the Tunisian still routinely won the opening set of her match after earning back-to-back breaks in the seventh and ninth games.
Down by a set, rising star Sonobe started the second set by breaking the three-time Grand Slam finalist in the first game.
However, it didn't take long before Jabeur overturned the deficit as she registered breaks in the second and eighth games to get the job done in two sets.
In the Noskova and Badosa match, the Czech also blew the first break of the match but broke the Spaniard again in the ninth game for a 5-4 lead before serving out for the opener in the following game.
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After losing the opener, the second-seeded Spaniard's game completely fell apart as she lost her service four times and ended up losing in two sets.
