Bouchard ousts Cibulkova to advance to Sydney quarter-finals

Canadian Eugenie Bouchard advanced to her first WTA quarter-finals since March 2016 with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over third-seeded Dominika Cibulkova at the Sydney International tennis tournament on Tuesday.

Bouchard improved her career record to 4-1 against Cibulkova, who was ranked No. 5 and was voted the WTA's comeback player of the year in 2016 after her title win at the season-ending championship.

"Any time you play one of the best players in the world it's like a standard of where you're at," said Bouchard, who had a wild-card entry in Sydney. "Every time I have played a match with Domi, we have had the toughest battles.

"I have won, I guess, more often than not, but everyone is a really tough battle."

Bouchard had an early break in the second set, but dropped serve and allowed Cibulkova, a finalist at the 2014 Australian Open, a way back into the match.

But the Canadian star broke again quickly and held onto the advantage.

Bouchard had a breakout season in 2014, reaching the semifinals at the Australian Open and French Open before making the final at Wimbledon. But she has only gone past the fourth round at a major once since then and slipped to No. 46 at the end of last year.

After winning back-to-back matches at a tournament for the first time since August in Cincinnati, she will play a quarter-final against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who beat defending champion Svetlana Kuznetsova 7-5, 6-3.

"I have taken a couple of solid steps this week, but I'm far from where I want to be," Bouchard said. "Even though I won, to me, I could do a lot of things better."

Meanwhile, top-ranked Angelique Kerber lost her opening match on Tuesday, upset 7-6 (5), 6-2 by Darya Kasatkina in a setback ahead of her Australian Open title defence next week.