Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova ended the dream run of France's Caroline Garcia with a clinical performance to reach the semi-finals of the Wuhan Open on Thursday.
Kvitova, the highest seed standing at the hard court tournament after the exits of top two seeds Serena Williams and Romanian Simona Halep, defeated Garcia 6-3, 6-4 in the $2.4 million inaugural WTA event.
The 24-year-old Czech broke Garcia, ranked 49 in the world, once in each set to win the quarter-final.
Garcia, 20, accounted for former world number one Venus Williams and Agnieszka Radwanska enroute to the last eight in the tournament but too many unforced errors hurt her on Thursday.
"I know Garcia had a great week here, that she beat Venus and Aga 7-6 in the third. You always have to be prepared for a fight," Kvitova said.
"I knew that she can play really well, and that she can serve well and play very aggressively from the baseline, so I knew that I had to be ready for her.
"It was quite humid and hot today, and I was really sweating a lot, but the court feels faster, which is something that probably suits my game a lot. I'm serving well, so that's helpful too."
The victory also kept twice Wimbledon champion Kvitova on course for qualifying for the year-ending WTA Finals in Singapore.
A title at Wuhan will confirm Kvitova's spot with Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova and Simona Halep having already booked their places.
Another player who kept her hopes alive for the Singapore event was Canadian Eugenie Bouchard.
The sixth seed also marched into the semi-finals with a 6-3, 7-5 win against another Frenchwoman, Alize Cornet.
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