19-year-old Canadian Victoria Mboko breezed past Eva Lys in under an hour on Wednesday at the WTA 500 Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo, winning 6-1 6-1 to reach the quarter-finals where she awaits either 2nd-seeded Elena Rybakina or her compatriot Leylah Fernandez, who play on Thursday.

Also through to the Last 8 are Karolina Muchova, the 8th seed, who was a 6-3 6-4 winner over Maya Joint, Anna Kalinskaya, after the Russian upset her compatriot, 7th-seeded Diana Shnaider, 7-6(4) 2-6 7-5, and Linda Noskova, the 6th seed, who fought her way past McCartney Kessler, 5-7 6-3 6-4.

Mboko made it into her 2nd WTA quarter-final of her young career in 53 minutes.

“I wanted to just be myself, and try to play very aggressively,” Mboko said after the match. “I didn’t really have much of a game plan. I just wanted to play freely, and just be very positive with myself on court. So, I think I checked all the marks today, and it all worked out at the end of the day.”

Mboko broke to open the match, and won the first set in just 25 minutes, committing only 2 unforced errors and dropping just 3 points on her own serve, all of which she backed up with a near-identical second set, facing just a single break point all match, and saving it with ease.

In fact, the 23-year old German never mounted any real threat to the Canadian’s serve in their 2nd meeting where she suffered her 2nd loss to Mboko.

Interestingly, Mboko lost just 8 points on her serve, but half of those came in the final game alone, after which she finished with 10 unforced errors and 12 winners.

Unfortunately for Lys, she was once again targeted by angry bettors on Instagram, sending hateful messages following her exit.

Ranked No 50 in the world, Lys won 2 qualifying matches to make her main draw debut in Tokyo before clinching a notable 1st-round win over Britain’s former World No 23, Katie Boulter.

“Tennis is fun until it’s not,” the German captioned her Instagram Story, having also been a victim of social media abuse earlier in the month

In late September and early October, Lys enjoyed her career-best WTA 1000 run when she upset Elena Rybakina en route to making her first quarter-final in the WTA 1000 in Beijing, but couldn’t pull off another upset win against Coco Gauff, who ended her run, 6-3 6-4, which prompted insults from angry bettors.

Meanwhile, Karolina Muchova came from 2-0 down in the first set to defeat talented Australian teenager, Maya Joint, in a first-time encounter that lasted an hour and 29 minutes, and sent the Czech into her 4th quarter-final of the year.

The 29-year old had reached the 2nd-round when her compatriot, former Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova, pulled out of their opening match after 50 minutes with the score standing at 6-2, 1-0,  citing an injury.

According to reports, Karolina Pliskova has since accused Vondrousova of retiring because she didn’t think she had a chance of winning the match, which didn’t sit well with the 2023 Wimbledon champion.

Last week, Muchova routed Vondrousova, 6-4 6-3, in an all-Czech battle in the Ningbo Open 1st-round, and, in Tokyo, the two Czechs were drawn to meet again.

Pliskova, who returned from ankle surgery in late September, is again side-lined after taking part in only 3 matches across 2 tournaments.

“I saw both of Karolina Muchova’s and Marketa Vondrousova’s matches that were played in recent days,” Pliskova said on a Czech tennis podcast. “It’s never nice to play against the same opponent twice in a row. You simply don’t want that. They both train at Stvanice, they’re friends. It was especially unpleasant for Marketa. She’s now lost to Karolina in Tokyo, Ningbo and even a big match in Indian Wells.

“Today, for me, Marketa had absolutely no chance, I give Karolina credit, she played excellently. And again, off topic: Sorry, but I think it could have been finished today.

“For me, it’s similar to Tomas Machac in Shanghai. Maybe Marketa was hurt, but I think that Marketa saw that she had no chance, and gave up the match for this reason. I’ll probably get another round of criticism, but give it to me.”

Vondrousova, who surgically fixed her shoulder last year but remains bothered by the issue, was left stunned after hearing about Pliskova’s take.

“Anyone who has ever played with an injury knows that sometimes you just can’t go on,” Vondrousova wrote in a message posted on Instagram. “I’m doubly aware of this after shoulder surgery. I don’t understand why someone who should understand it the most is questioning this.”

Vondrousova missed 3 months between February and May earlier in the season, which, overall, has been a challenging one for the 26-year-old Czech.

Muchova awaits the winner of the match between 5th-seeded Belinda Bencic from Switzerland and French qualifier Varvara Gracheva on Thursday.

In an all-Russian affair, Anna Kalinskaya squeaked past Diana Shnaider in a Tokyo third-set tiebreak thriller.

The first-time encounter between the two did not disappoint, as Kalinskaya came from 2-4 down in the third set to edge the 7th seed in a 2-hour, 42-minute barn-burner.

The result was Kalinskaya’s 5th Top 20 win of 2025, and she will now take on another Czech, Linda Noskova, who had to delve deep into her toolbox to produce a full array of shots to beat McCartney Kessler.

The No 6 seed improved her record against the American to 2-1 overall after a 2 hour 4 minute battle, and advances to her 7th Last 8 appearance of the season.

Noskova has played Kalinskaya just once before, in qualifying for Adelaide #1 in 2023, and won, 3-6 6-2 7-6(7).