Marina Erakovic’s impressive tennis partnership with Britain’s Heather Watson will get a tough examination in the quarter-finals of the doubles event at the ASB Classic in Auckland.

The No.2 seeds will be on centre court in the last match on Wednesday night, when they will face Zimbabwean doubles great Cara Black and Australian Anastasia Rodionova.

Black and Rodionova made it through the first round by beating two notable names in the Russian-Belgian combination of Svetlana Kuznetsova and Yanina Wickmayer.

While Erakovic is still seeking her first WTA singles title – she has twice been a runner-up – the New Zealand No.1 has won seven in doubles.

Two of those were with Watson in 2012.

Apart from the first round of the US Open in September, when the pair retired midway through the first set because Erakovic had a back injury, they are undefeated in their nine other matches together.

The last of those was against the teenage New Zealand team of Paige Hourigan and Claudia Williams on Monday.

Erakovic says she didn’t get a chance to see Black and Rodionova’s first-round victory, but their reputation preceded them.

“Rodionova is a very good doubles player to start with and Cara Black is a legend,” she said.

“Cara hasn’t played in a while, but it’s definitely going to be tough.”

The 33-year-old Black, who has won 54 WTA doubles titles, is making a return to the tour after taking time out for the birth of her first child.

“It definitely is tricky to come up against them in the second round,” Erakovic said.

“But me and Heather have played some really good doubles matches so we’re not going to go out there a little shell-shocked or anything. We’ll go out swinging and we’ll do our best.”

Erakovic is in for a busy Wednesday.

In the afternoon, she plays her second-round singles match against unseeded American Jamie Hampton.

She is the sole New Zealander left in the tournament after doubles combination Abigail Guthrie and Emma Hayman lost 6-2 7-5 to Ukraine’s Yuliya Beygelzimer and Israel’s Julia Glushko.