Simona Halep cruises into Birmingham quarters

The top seeded Romanian sealed a one-sided first set with an ace and broke immediately in the second set as she raced to a comfortable victory – sealing her triumph with a thumping two-handed backhand down the line.

"I expected a tough match because she plays very hard on grass with her type of game," Halep said.

"It's difficult to play her on this surface but I didn't really want to think about that - I just came out here and played my game, played my style, stayed aggressive and especially served very well in the match."

Halep will face Kristina Mladenovic in the last eight after the Frenchwoman beat 10th seed Barbora Strycova 7-6(4) 6-2.

Daniela Hantuchova (Slovakia) beat Michelle Larcher de Brito (Portugal) 6-4 7-5

8-Sabine Lisicki (Germany) beat Magdalena Rybarikova (Slovakia) 7-6(7) 6-4

6-Karolina Pliskova (Czech Republic) beat Zarina Diyas (Kazakhstan) 6-2 6-2

4-Angelique Kerber (Germany) beat 15-Jelena Jankovic (Serbia) 6-4 6-2

Kristina Mladenovic (France) beat 10-Barbora Strycova (Czech Republic) 7-6(4) 6-2

1-Simona Halep (Romania) beat Klara Koukalova (Czech Republic) 6-1 6-3

3-Carla Suarez Navarro (Spain) beat 13-Svetlana Kuznetsova (Russia) 6-3 6-4

Katerina Siniakova (Czech Republic) beat Christina McHale (U.S.) 6-4 6-0

6-Karolina Pliskova (Czech Republic) beat Johanna Konta (Britain) 3-6 6-3 6-4