Santangelo sports a tattoo in Bangalore. (AFP)

Bangalore: Reigning champion and top seed Mara Santangelo of Italy survived a scare before getting the better of Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan 3-6, 7-5, 6-2 to enter the quarter finals of the $175,000 Sony Ericsson WTA Bangalore Open on Thursday.

It was not a good start for Santangelo as she faced the threat of elimination from her tall and well-built rival Amanmuradova, who broke the Italian twice in the first set, in the third and ninth games.

The lone player from Uzbekistan in this field turned the heat on slamming 14 aces.

The beginning of second set also saw Santangelo virtually gifting her game, but she pulled up her socks in the fourth game and went on to level the scores at 4-all.

Santangelo’s self-belief did the trick as she displayed top stuff by winning the tie-breaker before providing a thrilling finish to the match.

The 38th-ranked Italian now faces qualifier Japanese Yurika Sema, who will be playing in her first quarter finals this year following her round 16 and round 32 exits at Tokyo and Pattaya in the last two weeks.

Melinda Czink, the lone Hungarian playing here, made her second quarter finals of the year, overcoming a stiff resistance from Su-Wei Hsieh of Chinese Taipei 4-6, 7-6, 7-5.

Czink, who had lost in semi-finals here last year to Croat lass Jelena Kostanic Tosic, will next take on 33-year-old Tzipora Obziler of Israel on Friday.

The doubles top-seeded pair of Yung-Jan Chan and Chia-Jung Chuang of Chinese Taipei had to struggle a lot in their match over Alberta Brianti of Italy and Mariya Koryttseva of Ukraine before prevailing 6-2, 4-6 (10-8).