China's Wang Qiang moved into the quarterfinals after beating Karolina Pliskova 6-4, 6-4 in the third round of the China Open, celebrating her first quarterfinal appearance at the Premier Mandatory level with her 15th win in her last 17 matches.

Before that, Wang won the Guangzhou Open and reached the semifinals in both Hiroshima and Wuhan.

At one point in the second set, Wang was down 1-4, but she managed to rally and win five consecutive games to close out the set.

"With so many people cheering for you, I'm not fighting only for myself, I'm fighting for everyone. This is highly related to the support of the fans," Wang said.

Wang will face Wuhan Open champion Aryna Sabalenka in the quarterfinals.

Zhang Shuai ready for Naomi Osaka

Earlier, home favorite Zhang Shuai powered into the quarterfinals, upsetting world No. 3 Angelique Kerber of Germany 6-1, 2-6, 6-0.

Zhang showed strong shooting on return from the outset, breaking her opponent's first service game to race to a 3-0 lead out of the gate.

Both players held serve to 4-1 for Zhang, who got yet another break to go four set points up. She then tilted the momentum on court solidly in her favor to take the first set with ease.

The second set was much more of a struggle for both players, but Zhang came out worse, double faulting four times on the way to letting Kerber force a decider.

Zhang managed to turn things around decisively in the third, breaking all of her opponent's service games and winning 86 percent of her own first service points. Kerber coughed up 13 unforced errors in the third set to only three for Zhang.

Next up for Zhang is US Open champion Naomi Osaka of Japan, who logged a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Germany's Julia Goerges.