TASHKENT, Uzbekistan - After an upset-free first round, several seeds were bounced out of the Tashkent Open in second round action on Wednesday and a couple more barely escaped the same fate.

One of those was top seed Alexandra Dulgheru, who rallied from a 5-3 third set deficit in her 46 61 75 victory over Ekaterina Bychkova.

"I am happy I survived," Dulgheru said. "It was a close match. I made some crucial mistakes, which caused the match to have a close finish. Ekaterina played well and I am happy I was able to close out the match."

Also playing with fire was Tashkent native Akgul Amanmuradova, who had a see-saw battle with Jill Craybas, fighting off a set point at 5-3 down in the first set and failing to win the second set despite jumping out to a 5-3 lead before eventually prevailing, 75 67(6) 62. The triumph should be especially enjoyable for the second-seeded Amanmuradova, considering she had never even won a set in her five previous encounters with the American.

No.5 seed Monica Niculescu had the most bizarre scoreline of the day, an 06 60 61 defeat of Ekaterina Ivanova. Niculescu's best results of her career are four quarterfinal appearances, and three of those have occurred in Tashkent - in 2008, 2009 and now 2010. In Thursday's quarterfinals, she will take on fellow Romanian Dulgheru, and Amanmuradova will play No.7 seed Alla Kudryavtseva, a 64 62 winner over fellow Russian Alexandra Panova.

In one of the day's upsets, Evgeniya Rodina rallied from a 5-3 deficit in the first set, winning it in a tie-break before third-seeded Anna Chakvetadze retired with a viral illness down 3-2 in the second set. By making the quarters, the Russian has now matched her best career result, which also occurred at Tashkent in 2005. Next up for her is Stefanie Voegele, who started off in a 4-2 hole but only lost one game the rest of the way in her 64 61 win over eighth-seeded Maria Elena Camerin.

"I've played her twice and lost," Voegele said of Camerin. "Our last meeting was in 2009 in Nottingham (an ITF Women's Circuit event), where she won in the final. Today, I tried to play every point against her. It was tough to work for every point and got tougher."

Also Wednesday, Darya Kustova got past sixth-seeded Magdalena Rybarikova, 62 46 63, to set up a clash with fourth-seeded Elena Vesnina, a straight set winner over Olga Savchuk. Kustova also matched her best-ever result, a quarterfinal showing here last year.