MELBOURNE, Australia -- While the men's side is playing fairly true to the rankings at the Australian Open, the women's side is a tale of two halves.
No. 12-seeded Zheng Qinwen, a quarterfinalist at last year's US Open, is the highest-ranked player left in the top half of the bracket, where all four women who won Monday reached the last eight at Melbourne Park for the first time.
"The people who arrive to quarterfinals, for sure they're all feeling really well in this tournament," Zheng said after her 6-0, 6-3 win over No. 95 Oceane Dodin. "It's one player against another player, and we will compete."
She will next play No. 75-ranked Anna Kalinskaya. No. 50 Linda Noskova, who beat top-ranked Iga Swiatek in the third round, will meet No. 93 Dayana Yastremska.
There are still three Grand Slam winners in the other half of the bracket. No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka, the defending champion, will take on 2021 French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova and US Open winner Coco Gauff will play Marta Kostyuk in quarterfinals on Tuesday.
Some unexpected charges continue in the women's field, with opportunities opening up for the likes of Noskova, Yastremska and Kalinskaya to advance to the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam for the first time.
Kalinskaya beat No. 26 Jasmine Paolini 6-4, 6-2 to end a streak of 13 majors that didn't go beyond the second round.
Yastremska beat the 18th-seeded Victoria Azarenka, a two-time Australian Open champion, 7-6 (6), 6-4, and No. 23-seeded Elina Svitolina had to retire after hurting her back when she was trailing Noskova 3-0.
"I got a spasm, like a shooting pain," she said. "Couldn't do anything, completely locked my back, just very sad. I had some injuries to my back before where it just was tiredness ... but this one was really out of nowhere. I felt like someone shot me in the back."
The 19-year-old Noskova now is the youngest player to reach the Australian Open women's quarterfinals since 2008.
Yastremska saved set points in the first against Azarenka and was down a break in the second but rallied to win six of the last seven games.
"I think I need to take a thousand breaths because my heart I think is going to jump out of my body," Yastremska said. "During the match, I was imagining how I lost already like 25 times. I was losing the tiebreak, second set I was losing, I always felt I was running behind the train.
"But because I'm a little bit of a fighter I think I won this match."