LUXEMBOURG'S Anne Kremer continued her great form in the BMW Malaysian Open winning her way as a qualifier into the quarter-finals at the Bukit Kiara Equestrian and Country Resort yesterday.

The 36-year-old showed little signs of fatigue in her fifth straight match of the tournament as she defeated Thailand's World No 176 Noppawan Lertcheewakaran 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 to reach the last eight of a tour event for the first time since Budapest in April, 2007.

The World 169, who upset Japan's Kimiko Date in the first round on Tuesday, played with a strapped right thigh but it did not deter her from playing her best to subdue Noppawan, who was consistently making mistakes with her play.

The first set saw each player breaking serve three times before Anne won it 7-4 in the tie-break.

It was the same story in the second set as both players found it tough to hold their serve. But Anne raced ahead by breaking her opponent's serve in the eighth-game before sealing victory.

"Consistency and experience made the difference today (yesterday). I did not play the way I liked, probably slightly defensive, as this was my fifth match in five days and it affected my game," said Anne, whose only tour wins were recorded in Auckland and Pattaya, 11 years ago.

"I pushed my opponent by playing some extra balls and waited for her to make mistakes. I used a lot of my energy, and at my age, it is tough to sustain, since my campaign started here and now, I just want to have a good rest before my next match."

Anne, who turned professional in 1998, will play tomorrow against the winner of today's match-up between Russia's defending champion Alisa Kleybanova and the Netherlands' Michaella Krajicek.

In another second round match, Serbia's World No 55 and eight seed Bojana Jovanovski came back strongly from an opening set hiccup to edged Poland's World No 184 Urszula Radwanska 1-6, 7-5, 6-4.

"I felt confident coming into the match but somehow started badly in the first set. She served really well and made it difficult for me.

"The heat made it very difficult to play. It was the worst time of day to play three sets. I came from Doha but the heat there was only about 20 degrees so it was not as hot as here," said Bojana.

Meanwhile, the Japanese and Taiwanese combination of Shuko Aoyama and Chan Chin Wei created the biggest upset in the doubles by defeating top seeds, Michaella and Tatjana Malek of Germany 6-3, 6-4 in the first round.

"We didn't think too much about our opponents, although we knew they were ranked much higher than us. We just tried to play our own game," said Chin Wei.

Shuko-Chin Wei will face Russia's Elena Bovina-Nina Bratchikova in the quarter-finals.

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IT will be a battle of foreign players when UniKL take on Yayasan Negri Sembilan (YNS) in the first of the two-leg quarter-finals of the TNB Cup tomorrow.

UniKL beat YNS twice (2-1 and 3-2) in the just concluded Premier Division tournament but past results will count for nothing in the quarter-final, especially with YNS fielding a full strength squad this time.

UniKL, powered by five foreign players, were the Premier Division leaders briefly but failed to sustain their momentum and eventually ended up fourth, while YNS, who have 11 foreign signings, failed to impress and finished one rung below.

UniKL coach Darren Smith hopes his squad will carry on playing good hockey in the knock-out stages.

"We are looking forward to playing YNS this weekend in what will be a challenging match. Our key players Stephen Graham (goalkeeper) and Richard Petherick (penalty corner specialist) have been training with the team since returning from international duty and both are in good form," said Smith yesterday.

"We had positive results in the league where we beat traditional powerhouse teams Sapura and Tenaga Nasional courtesy of our attacking style of game. I want my players to continue the momentum."

Smith singled out midfielder Shakeel Abbasi and strikers Prabjot Singh, Deepak Thakur and Muhammad Waqas as YNS' most dangerous players.

"These players will have to be monitored carefully as they are strong in their counter attacks. We will need to defend effectively against them but more importantly we must avoid giving away penalty corners as they have a strong drag flicker in Mohamed Imran," said Smith.

But Smith does not want his team to get stuck in defensive mode during the match.

"We also need to attack their players and weaknesses. My players are focused and ready to gain a good result on Friday (tomorrow)," added Smith.

The winner of tomorrow's match will face either Kuala Lumpur Hockey Club (KLHC) or Bandar Penawar Sports School (BPSS) in the semi-finals.

Q-FINAL 1ST LEG -- TOMORROW: KLHC v BPSS (4pm); YNS v UNIKL (6pm); Sapura v Maybank (8pm); ATM JNRS v TNB (5pm, KL Hockey Stadium) -- matches at Tun Razak Stadium unless stated.

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