Tennis: Romanian-Japanese duo Niculescu-Doi advances to quarterfinals at Shenzhen Open

The pair made up of Romanian tennis player Monica Niculescu and Japanese tennis player Misaki Doi qualified on Monday for the quarterfinals of the women's doubles at the WTA tournament in Shenzen (China) - Shenzhen Open, with total prizes worth 775,000 US dollars, after defeating the duo made up of Ekaterina Alexandrova (Russia) / Oksana Kalashnikova (Georgia), with a score of 6-2, 6-2.

Niculescu and Doi managed to win in exactly one hour and secured a cheque worth 4,100 US dollars and 60 WTA doubles points.

In the quarterfinals, Niculescu-Doi duo will face off main seeds Elise Mertens (Belgium)/Arina Sabalenka (Belarus), who surpassed the pair made up of Kateryna Bondarenko (Ukraine) and Lidziya Marozava (Belarus).

Monica Niculescu won two Shenzhen Open titles in the women's doubles, in 2014 next to Klara Koukalova (the Czech Republic) and in 2016, alongside US player Vania King. In 2018, the women's doubles title was won by Simona Halep/Irina Begu.