Antwerp, Belgium - Swiss teenage qualifier Timea Bacsinszky pounced on an underdone and ailing Daniela Hantuchova as the third seed retired to hand over a 6-2, 4-6, 4-1 win in the quarter-final of the Proximus Diamond Games on Friday. Hantuchova was joined as an upset victim on the day by Swiss fourth seed Patty Schnyder, ambushed 6-2, 6-7 (1-7), 7-6 (7-2) by Italian Karin Knapp.
Top seed and local heroine Justine Henin was later hoping to uphold the status quo as she faced potential spoiler Alisa Kleybanova, a Russian qualifier.
Henin is playing at home for the first time in five years and is fresh off a narrow three-set escape in her opening second-round match on Thursday.
The Belgian was keen to be present for the final edition of the tournament which has fallen victim to a WTA calendar revamp for 2009.
World number one Henin will be fined 10,000 dollars for withdrawing from next week's key event in Doha and will also miss out of 125,000 dollars of year-end bonus pool money for failing to front up in the Gulf state.
But the emotion from a home public was enough for the Belgian: "All those people shouting and cheering and then all those cardboard messages ('Go, allez Justine!').
"You don't often experience that in your career. This was a night of magic, you cannot think of a nicer present."
Bacinszky will be playing in her first career WTA semi-final when she faces the winner of the Henin-Kleybanova match.
The 18-year-old Swiss from Lausanne earned her first success over a top 10 player as she beat Hantuchova, who was seen several times on court by a doctor and appeared to be having trouble breathing.
The second set was marked by seven breaks in 10 games, with Bacinszky taking control with a break in the third set before Hantuchova packed it in after just under two draining hours.
Against Swiss Schnyder, Italy's Knapp improve to 4-0 in career quarter-finals after winning her first on a surface other than clay.
The 13th-ranked Schnyder was playing an Antwerp quarter-final for the fifth time, winning only one back in 2002.
