For her part, world number seven Kvitova has breezed into the quarterfinals without dropping a set, defeating tough French customer Kristina Mladenovic 6-4, 6-4 and accounting for Belinda Bencic 6-3, 6-3.
They’re both experienced campaigners that tend to hang around the edge of seedings for Grand Slams and can claim a few scalps throughout the season, but they’re a step below Barty and Kvitova will need to assume some edge, quickly.
On Kvitova’s side is experience. She’s beaten Barty four times to the Australia’s one win so far throughout her career, with the Czech Wimbledon champion proving too intimidating for Barty on recent occasions.
Barty had a strong start to the Chinese Open, easily beating another of Kazakhstan’s growing slew of contenders, Yulia Putintseva, but it got a lot tougher – as it always has recently – with hometown favourite Saisai Zhang.
Barty admonished her own performances in that second set, before eventually progressing 6-3, 6-7, 6-2.
“I played a pretty stupid set. I made probably over 20 errors in that second set, and cheap ones in rolls, in twos and threes in a row, which is disappointing….
