Top seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova needed barely an hour to book her place in the semi-finals of the Baku Cup after comfortably sweeping aside the challenge of Kirsten Flipkens.
Pavlyuchenkova had won the only previous meeting between the two in straight sets and the Russian repeated the feat on Friday with a 6-1 6-3 victory in just 62 minutes in the Azerbaijan capital.
The Russian will now face Patricia Maria Tig as she chases her first final appearance of the year, with the Romanian qualifier securing her spot in the last four with a 6-3 6-2 victory over Croatia's Donna Vekic.
Tig, 21, is already in uncharted territory having never before reached the quarter-final for a WTA Tour event.
The other semi-final will pit second seed Karin Knapp - the only other seed aside from Pavlyuchenkova to make it through to the quarter-finals - against Margarita Gasparyan.
Italy's Knapp saw off Alexandra Panova 6-2 7-6 (7/4) and will now face another Russian in the form of Gasparyan, who defeated her compatriot Evgeniya Rodina 6-3 6-2.
Knapp is chasing her second successive final appearance having reached the title match in Bad Gastein last weekend, where she was beaten by Samantha Stosur in three sets.
Source: PA
