Bouchard among quarterfinal winners in Guadalajara

Eugenie Bouchard bounded into the final four of the Abierto Zapopan on Thursday as the semifinal lineup is set in Guadalajara.

Bouchard ousted qualifier Caty McNally, 6-4, 6-3, to reach her first WTA semifinal since her run to the Istanbul final last September.

"The last couple days have been a whirlwind," Bouchard said in her on-court post-match interview. "I’ve had matches every single day, so I haven’t even had time to think about it. I’m just so grateful I could stay here for another day."

19-year-old McNally found sterling passing winners to open up a 3-1 lead in the clash, but Bouchard rebounded with aggressive play to get level at 3-3. At 5-4, Bouchard powered two consecutive error-forcing returns to close out a service break and take the opening set.

A run of four straight service breaks in the second set was halted by Bouchard when she served out the match at 5-3, completing the 83-minute match with 23 winners to just five from McNally.

A wildcard into the event, Bouchard is now one win away from her eighth career WTA singles final. To get there, she will need to take out another rising qualifier: Elisabetta Cocciaretto.

Cocciaretto, who upset No.1 seed Nadia Podoroska to reach the quarterfinals, is now into the first WTA semifinal of her career after a 6-3, 6-0 win over Lauren Davis. Cocciaretto was pushed to three sets in her first qualifying match, but has not dropped another set since.

"Yes, it's unexpected, because I started from qualies, I played a lot of great matches with great players," a smiling Cocciaretto said on court, after her latest win. "I'm happy about that -- not about the win, but about playing with great players like them!"

20-year-old Cocciaretto needed just 71 minutes to convert five of her six break points en route to victory over former Top 30 player Davis. Davis was undone by 25 unforced errors, including 10 double faults.

Unlike the Bouchard-Cocciaretto semifinal, which features two unseeded players, the other semifinal will go according to seeding, as No.2 seed Marie Bouzkova and No.4 seed Sara Sorribes Tormo booked their assigned places.

Bouzkova notched her tenth main-draw win of the season with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Anna Karolina Schmiedlova. Bouzkova improved her head-to-head record over Schmiedlova to 2-0 with the 77-minute triumph.

After two routine service games, Schmiedlova was broken at love to give Bouzkova a 3-2 lead in the opener. That was all the No.2 seed needed as she cruised through the remainder of the set.

Bouzkova only faced one break point in the entire match as she eased through the second set to complete the affair and set up a clash with Sorribes Tormo.

Sorribes Tormo also had a straight-set win on Thursday, defeating qualifier Astra Sharma, 6-3, 6-3 in 83 minutes.

"I knew I lost the last nine quarterfinals I played, so I really wanted to make the semifinals!" Sorribes Tormo exclaimed after the match, where she improved her career win-loss record in WTA quarterfinals to 3-10.

Sorribes Tormo had one fewer winner than Sharma, but Sharma had 32 unforced errors, well outpacing Sorribes Tormo's 14. The Spaniard broke serve four times to romp to victory.