Ashleigh Barty has crashed out of the China Open hours after Jelena Ostapenko reopened old wounds for Samantha Stosur with a straight-sets second-round win.
With one eye on the No.1 Australian ranking Stosur relinquished to Daria Gavrilova earlier this year, Wuhan Open finalist Barty was outplayed by third seed Elina Svitolina 6-4 6-2.
Four months after cruelling Stosur's French Open hopes, Ostapenko cut short the one-time grand slam champion's comeback from injury with a 6-3 7-5 victory on Wednesday.
While victory secured Ostapenko a spot at this month's eight-player WTA Finals in Singapore, Stosur must be wondering what might have been had she not suffered a painful stress fracture against the Latvian in Paris.
The 2010 Roland Garros runner-up raced to a 4-0 lead over Ostapenko in 13 minutes and looked to be steaming towards her fifth French Open quarter-final before disaster struck.
The injury forced Stosur off tour for three months, the Queenslander sitting out Wimbledon and the US Open before finally returning for the Asian swing.
Now ranked 45th, the former world No.4 finally posted her first victory on Monday since Paris - where she was riding an eight-match winning streak on European clay - before running into Ostapenko.
In a fluctuating affair, Ostapenko dropped serve four times but broke Stosur on seven occasions to progress to the third round after one hour and 48 minutes.
There was nothing fluctuating about Simona Halep's 6-2 6-2 demolition of Maria Sharapova as the second-seeded Romanian avenged a first-round US Open loss to the five-times grand slam champion in ruthless fashion.
Halep committed just eight unforced errors in 72 minutes to defeat Sharapova for the first time in nine attempts.
In other second-round results, Frenchwoman Carolina Garcia boosted her chances of making the Singapore draw with a 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 win over Belgian Elise Mertens.
China's Peng Shuai beat Monica Niculescu of Romaina 6-3 6-2.
Gavrilova faces Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic on Thursday.
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