Suarez Navarro injures wrist, ending bid to reach WTA Finals

MOSCOW - A wrist injury killed off Carla Suarez Navarro's hopes of qualifying for the WTA Finals as the Spanish player retired while facing Australian Daria Gavrilova in the Kremlin Cup on Wednesday.

Needing to win the Kremlin Cup to qualify for the elite competition in Singapore this weekend, Suarez Navarro was down 6-4, 3-0 to Gavrilova in the second round when she retired.

Gavrilova, who was born in Moscow, will play either seventh-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia or Jelena Jankovic of Serbia in the quarterfinals.

Top-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova remains on course to claim the last WTA Finals place after she beat France's Alize Cornet 6-4, 7-5 in their second-round match. The Russian was in strong form, landing 76 percent of her first serves, and next plays either Hungarian Timea Babos or French player Kristina Mladenovic.

Kuznetsova will qualify for the WTA Finals only if she wins the Kremlin Cup. Otherwise, the place goes to Britain's Johanna Konta.

The fourth-seeded Elina Svitolina of Ukraine eased past Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan 6-2, 6-2 and into the quarterfinals. Svitolina next plays 18-year-old Croatian Ana Konjuh, who had a second-round walkover when Russian qualifier Anna Blinkova was unable to play.

In the men's event, seventh-seeded Paolo Lorenzi became the first seeded player to go out, losing to fellow Italian Fabio Fognini 7-5, 4-6, 6-1 in the second round.