Thailand's Ratchanok Intanon kept her quest for a third straight Superseries title on track with a tough 21-19, 21-17 win against Hsu Ya-ching of Taiwan in the second round of the BWF Singapore Open yesterday.
The third seed wrapped up her victory in 43 minutes and will face fellow Thai Porntip Buranaprasertsuk in today's quarter-finals.
The unseeded Porntip held her nerve as she fought back from a first-game thrashing to stun Chinese fifth seed Wang Yihan 9-21, 24-22, 21-17 in their 57-minute second round encounter.
Former world champion Ratchanok, who moved to No.2 in the world rankings following her India and Malaysia Open titles over the past two weeks, opened her campaign in Singapore with a 21-14, 21-10 first round victory over Cheung Ngan Yi of Hong Kong on Wednesday.
Porntip, on her part, defeated Yui Hashimoto of Japan 21-17, 21-14 in Wednesday's opening round.
Porntip's victory over Wang yesterday came less than a week after the Chinese star's straight-set defeat at the hands of Ratchanok at the Malaysia Open.
There had been speculations of a potential quarter-final clash between Ratchanok and Wang at the Singapore Open quarter-finals but the 21-year-old Thai will now be facing compatriot Porntip instead.
Ratchanok, who is now certain of a place at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, is being tipped for a semi-final encounter against top seed Carolina Marin of Spain.
Another Thai hopeful Nitchaon Jindapol put up a brave fight against Marin but found the Spaniard too tough to handle before losing 21-19, 21-15 in the second round.
World No.1 Marin, who is in Ratchanok's half of draw, will face Akane Yamaguchi of Japan in today's quarter-finals after the Japanese eight seed battled past Michelle Li of Canada 21-12, 19-21, 21-8.
In the men's singles, Chinese top seed and world No.1 Chen Long rallied from a game down to overcome Thai veteran Boonsak Ponsana 17-21, 21-18, 21-9 in a second round match.
In the men's doubles, Angga Pratama and Ricky Karanda Suwardi of Indonesia scored a comfortable 21-11, 21-14 victory over Dechapol Puavaranukroh and Kittinupong Kedren of Thailand.