For the second year in a row Romanian star Simona Halep has knocked Australia’s Samantha Stosur out of the Madrid Open.

This time the third seed needed just under two hours to beat the Australian 6-4 4-6 6-4 and advance to the quarter-finals of the tournament she won last year.

For Stosur it was a hit and miss performance. When she stepped up into the court and hit deep she invariably made Halep pay but in the first and third sets there were simply too many unforced errors to go with her winners.

The match opened in the worst way possible for the Australian, with Halep breaking her serve and Stosur couldn’t peg that back.

In the second set it was Stosur who broke early to take a 2-0 lead, which she gave back immediately as a desperately defensive Halep rallied to make some impossible shots.

Stosur, who was imposing her will on Halep’s second ball, taking seven of eight points on it throughout the set broke again to go up 5-4 before serving it out to send the match to a decider.

The two women traded shaky service games early on until Halep got Stosur to 0-40 in the fifth game, broke her and then closed out the match calmly.

Halep will now play American world No.20 Coco Vandeweghe in the quarters after Vandeweghe came back from a set down to defeat Spaniard Carla Suarez Navarro 5-7 6-4 7-5.

Joining them in the other semi-final in the bottom half are Dutchwoman Kiki Bertens and Latvian wildcard Anastasija Sevastova after both advanced in straight sets.

In the top half of the draw Russian eighth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova awaits either Angelique Kerber or Eugenie Bouchard in the quarters after she saw off China’s Qiang Wang 6-4 7-5.

While Halep’s fellow Romanian Sorana Cirstea advanced to the final eight with a 7-5 3-6 6-1 win over Japan’s Misaki Doi. She will next play a Frenchwoman in either Oceane Dodin or Kristina Mladenovic.