Dasha's strange mishap after feline court invasion
Daria Gavrilova was visibly thrown as a cat ran on court during her match in Moscow, and she suffered a rare ignominy straight after.
Dasha scored a critical first-round win over Kristyna Pliskova at the Kremlin Cup on Wednesday to stay in the hunt for a spot at the prestigious Elite Trophy round-robin event.
However she had a huge hiccup in the second set when she blew five match points on serve at 6-5 to allow Pliskova to get back into the match.
During the fateful game she looked rather freaked out as a cat ran on court and darted right behind her as she was about to serve.
Dasha couldn't regain her composure and Pliskova broke for 6-6, before taking the set in a tiebreaker.
The Aussie eventually recovered and blitzed the deciding set to beat her Czech opponent 6-4 6-7 (7-5) 6-1.
While the cat wasn't a black one, did it jinx Dasha? The ease of victory in the third set suggests maybe it did.
Gavrilova and fellow Australian Ashleigh Barty are fighting to secure qualification in the 12-player field for the season-ending showpiece in China. Players ranked ninth to 20 at the end of the WTA's 2017 points race next Monday will make the Zhuhai field.
Barty, who is sitting out the tour this week, is currently 19th in the race after landing her maiden singles title and reaching two other finals in a breakout season. Gavrilova is 22nd and needs to reach at least the quarter-finals in Moscow - where she was runner-up last year to Svetlana Kuznetsova - to have any chance of scraping into the field.
Despite wearing heavy strapping around her left thigh, Gavrilova showed no problems with her mobility, or jet lag, producing some magnificent ground strokes in the opening set much to the frustration of her left-handed opponent.
Gavrilova, runner-up to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in an epic three-set final on Sunday in Hong Kong, faces Belarusian qualifier Vera Lapko for an all-important quarter-final berth. Her prospect of making Zhuhai were aided by Pavlyuchenkova's 7-6 (7-2) 6-1 loss to her Russian compatriot Daria Kasatkina.
Meanwhile Maria Sharapova was beaten by Magdalena Rybarikova 7-6 (7-3) 6-4, ending her bid for a second title in two weeks.
Sharapova, who won the Tianjin Open two days ago, brought her usual power but lacked accuracy with some wild swings on key points.
"I felt fine physically, to be honest, especially after having played five matches in five days (in Tianjin). That was a big surprise," Sharapova said.
"Maybe I wasn't as prepared as I should have been ... Maybe if this tournament hadn't been in Moscow, I wouldn't have played it."
with AAP