Former Brisbane champion Karolina Pliskova will hope her practice form translates when she reunites with Donna Vekic in Saturday’s semi-final.

The fifth-seeded Czech hit with Croatia’s Vekic pre-tournament and wouldn’t mind a repeat of the outcome when they vie for a finals berth.

“I played super amazing in practice and she was laughing about it actually,” Pliskova said.

“But I saw a little bit of the match and she killed Sasnovich (in the quarter-final), so I said we always have to practice before the tournament because then we always both play well.”

Pliskova – champion in 2017 to kickstart a year that also saw her briefly sit atop the world rankings – has taken a liking to the Brisbane tournament.

The world No.8 dumped Australian hope Ajla Tomljanovic from the quarter-finals in a fluctuating three-set win on Friday night.

“I was pretty confident with myself,” she said.

“Like, the second set was bad, but I was pretty confident coming into the third set.”

Pliskova will be tested by Vekic though, who dropped just two games against Aliaksandra Sasnovich earlier on Friday.

Also battling for a spot in the final on Saturday will be US Open champion Naomi Osaka and on-song Ukrainian Lesia Tsurenko.

“I feel like right now I’m really confident in myself, and I feel like the off season training that I’ve been doing is really paying off,” Osaka said.