Caroline Wozniacki wilts in heat in Sydney

Former World No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki was unable to overcome both the stifling heat and her opponent on Wednesday before losing a quarterfinal match at the Apia International Sydney tournament in Sydney, Australia.

Playing in 104-degree temperatures, unseeded Czech veteran Barbora Strycova got the better of the Dane in a 7-5, 6-7 (6), 6-4 match that lasted three hours and 19 minutes.

"For me it was good to have the 10 minutes' heat rule in," Strycova said. "(After the second set) I was sitting in the locker room actually not thinking about the set, not thinking about the future, just how to recover fast.

"At the beginning of the third set, I was down and not moving very well. But then I was saying to myself, 'Keep going. Don't say anything. Don't be negative. Just play point by point.'"

Wozniacki dealt with the heat by battling back from 5-2 down in the second set and then 5-0 in the tiebreaker.

"You just try and think like you're on a beach drinking pina coladas," Wozniacki said afterward. "That's basically your train of thought. You know that it's the same for both players, so I was just trying to mentally just try and keep cool. But it was really, really hot out there.

"On the positive side of things, I can eat whatever I want now because I have burned a lot of calories today."

Strycova advanced to the semifinals to face second-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland, who posted a 6-3, 6-2 win over Chinese qualifier Ying-Ting Duan.

Canadian Eugenie Bouchard advanced to the final four by upsetting world No. 27 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, 6-2, 6-3, in a match that lasted 76 minutes.

Bouchard, who is bidding to end a 2 1/2-year championship drought, will face sixth-seeded Johanna Konta after the British star posted a 6-3, 7-5 triumph over Russian Daria Kasatkina.

Konta breezed to victory in the first set and won five of the final six games to end the match in 1:45.

Kasatkina, 19, was one match removed from pulling off a shocking upset of world No. 1 Angelique Kerber of Germany 7-6 (5), 6-2, on Tuesday.