Zheng beats weather to reach Birmingham semi-finals

BIRMINGHAM: China's Zheng Jie reached the semi-finals of the Birmingham WTA grasscourt tournament on Saturday, but torrential rain left organisers with a nightmare backlog of matches. Zheng got the better of Italian fourth seed Roberta Vinci 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 in a quarter-final already held over from Friday. The world number 32 will play the winner of the quarter-final between Jelena Jankovic and Misaki Doi, which was suspended on Edgbaston Priory Club's Centre Court due to rain. Jankovic was leading 2-0 in the opening set when the weather intervened. Russia's Ekatarina Makarova is also through to the last four
after dodging the showers to beat Taiwan's Su-Wei Hsieh 3-6, 6-3, 6-3. The Russian will now take on either Melanie Oudin or Irinia Falconi. Oudin led her American compatriot 6-4, 5-7, 1-0 when play was called off to leave organisers trying to squeeze two quarter-finals, semi-finals and the final into Sunday. (AFP)