Roberta Vinci thrashed Dominika Cibulkova on Tuesday (5th January) to reach the Brisbane International quarter-finals, but the tournament lost two of its biggest names, Maria Sharapova and Simona Halep, to injury.

The Brisbane International lost two of its biggest stars to injury on Tuesday.

Defending champion Maria Sharapova and top-seeded Simona Halep withdrew from the Australian Open warm-up tournament within an hour of each other without playing a match.

Sharapova withdrew hours before her first-round match with fellow Russian Ekaterina Makarova with a sore left forearm.

Halep had a first-round bye and withdrew a day ahead of her scheduled opening match against Victoria Azarenka because of the recurrence of a left Achilles tendon injury.

The Romanian explained the reasons behind pulling out:

SOUNDBITE: (English) Simona Halep, world number two

"I had problems with my Achilles in August, September and then I didn't feel any more, but now I have a couple of weeks already again with the pain and I thought that I am ready to play and I came here like I wanted to play to start the year here. But I'm not full (fully fit). I cannot have a full match and I thought that it's more important to be ready and to take a break a little bit."

On court, last year's surprise US Open finalist Roberta Vinci eased through to the quarter-finals against Dominika Cibulkova.

The Slovak reached the final of the Australian Open two years ago but has struggled for form and fitness since and she was blown away 6-1 in the first set.

It was much the same in the second set as eighth seed Vinci won 6-1 6-1 and she will face either Azarenka or lucky loser Ysaline Bonaventure who takes Halep's place in the main draw.