Australian Open seed Kiki Bertens has crashed out of the Hobart International tennis at the hands of a qualifier.

Belgian Elise Mertens, ranked 127, on Thursday disposed of Bertens 6-2 7-5 in just 79 minutes.

“It was tough … for me it was a little bit searching for rhythm,” said world No.22 Bertens.

Despite clawing back a 5-3 lead in the second set, Bertens couldn’t convert, losing four straight games to concede the match.

“Before the match I wanted to try and play aggressive and that didn’t work out, or at least I didn’t do it during the match so I need to do that better,” she said.

Bertens, from the Netherlands, now heads to Melbourne for the Australian Open where she’s never progressed further than round two, but in 2017 will be seeded 19.

“From tomorrow I have to be ready again, be focused again, try to prepare as good as I can into Melbourne,” Bertens said.

The victory is a great result for Mertens, whose earlier success in Hobart forced her to miss Thursday’s qualifying round for the Open.

She will contest her first WTA main draw semi-final on Friday against Croatian qualifier Jana Fett, who beat Paraguay’s Veronica Cepede Royg 6-1 6-4 to reach the final four.

It took world No.340 Fett 74 minutes to overcome Royg, ranked 129, who also started the tournament as a qualifier.

Still to come in Hobart quarter-final action on Thursday, Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko takes on American Shelby Rogers.

In the evening, Japanese qualifier Risa Ozaki will try to topple Romanian Monica Niculescu.

Ozaki on Wednesday caused a surprise, ending the Hobart campaign of former world No.5 Lucie Safarova.