Australian Casey Dellacqua was knocked out of the Hobart International with a 6-4 7-5 quarter-final loss to Greek world No.43 Eleni Daniilidou.

Daniilidou was too strong in the big points for the young Australian, who was contesting her first WTA quarter final.

It appeared it would be a different story with Dellacqua reeling off the first three games of the match before conceding six of the next seven to lose the first set.

"I didn't feel that nervous when I started and I was smacking winners everywhere," Dellacqua said.

"She started pushing me around a bit with her slice and I got a bit tentative."

Despite the loss, Dellacqua was upbeat about her performance in Hobart.

"Obviously it has been a great week for me," she said.

"I can take plenty of positives out of it."

Dellacqua now heads to next week's Australian Open with plenty of confidence.

"My first goal is to get through the first round and go from there," she said.

Dellacqua had plenty of chances in the second set to even the match but too many unforced errors crept into her game.

She led 3-1 in the second before Daniilidou got the set back on serve as both players searched for dominance.

Daniilidou got the break in the 11th game to go ahead 6-5 and then served it out.

She will now face Italy's Flavia Pennetta, who advanced to the semi-finals by ousting sixth seed Sania Mirza of India.

Pennetta survived a mid-match slump to win in three sets 7-5 1-6 6-3.

In the quarter-final battle of the qualifiers, American Ashley Harkleroad had a straight sets win over Romania's Edina Gallovits - to reach her first Hobart semi-final.

She will next take on No.2 seed Vera Zvonareva of Russia, who defeated countrywoman Elena Vesnina 6-3 6-3.

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP