Australian No.1 Ashleigh Barty has been knocked out of the Cincinnati Open by Simon Halep but she made the world No.1 work for her place in quarter-finals.

Halep comfortably beat Barty in the Canadian Open semi-finals last week, but she admits her 7-5 6-4 third round victory was tougher on Friday.

Barty hit five aces and committed to attacking throughout the match, which was suspended due to rain on Thursday, pushing it out to 90 minutes.

“It was very tricky, and she’s a tough opponent because she’s mixing the rhythm. I’m really happy I can go through this, and tonight, I’ll have another match,” Halep said in her on-court interview.

“I feel like she missed more than me today, and when I started to play more on the backhand and make her move, it was better for me.”

Barty won three of the first four games, forcing the Romanian to dig deep to win the last three games.

The 16th seed then won the first two games of the second set to before Halep again recovered to win four games in a row.

But Barty still held on and even gave herself the chance to level the scores at 5-5 with a breakpoint, but Halep hung on to win with a backhand shot.

The Romanian faces Ukrainian No.2 Lesia Tsurenko in the quarter-finals later on Friday.

On how she’ll recover for tonight’s affair against the World No.44, Halep said: “Hopefully, tonight I can play good tennis. I will have treatment, a power nap, and hopefully I will be okay.”