Sixth seeded Rushmi Chakravarthi ousted third seed Napaporn Tongsalee of Thailand to set up a semi-final clash with compatriot Shruti Dhawan in the US $25,000 MSLTA ITF Women's Tennis tournament in Mumbai on Thursday.
Rushmi, whose world ranking is 66 rungs below her quarter-final opponent, overcame a first set loss by picking up her game nicely to hand out a 3-6, 6-0, 6-4 victory to the Thai.
Qualifier Shruti turned the form book upside down by knocking out compatriot Sai Jayalakshmi-Jayaram, conqueror of top seed Nina Bratchikova on Wednesday.
Shruti downed Jayalakshmi, who has a WTA ranking of 535, which is 242 rungs better than the former, 3-6, 6-1, 6-1 to earn a shot at Rushmi in Friday's semi-finals.
The other semi-final will see second seed Chan Chin-Wei (Chinese Taipei), winner of the US $10,000 ITF event in Mumbai last week, taking on unseeded Czech Andrea Hlavackova after both survived three-set quarter-finals to advance.
Chin-Wei outsmarted Russian seventh seed Julia Vorobeva, her doubles partner in the tournament, 6-4 6-7 (5) 6-4 while Andrea stopped Thailand's lower-ranked opponent Thassha Vitayaviroj 5-7, 7-5, 7-5 in another keenly-fought encounter.
Results:
Singles (quarter-finals): Shruti Dhawan (Ind) bt Sai Jayalakshmi-Jayaram (Ind) 3-6, 6-1, 6-1; Rushmi Chakravarthi (Ind) bt Napaporn Tongsalee (Thai) 3-6, 6-0, 6-4; Andrea Hlavackova (Czech) bt Thassha Vitayaviroj (Thai) 5-7, 7-5, 7-5; Chin-Wei Chan (Tpe) bt Julia Vorobeva (Rus) 6-4, 6-7(5) 6-4.
Doubles (quarter-finals): Nina Bratchikova (Rus) and Fransesca Lubiani (Ita) bt Natsumi Hamamura (Jpn) and Yurika Sema (Jpn) 6-4, 7-6 (6); Chin-Wei Chan (Tpe) and Julia Vorobieva (Rus) bt Sheetal Goutham and Sonal Phadke (both Ind) 6-4, 6-1; Rushmi Chakravarthi and Sai Jayalakshmi-Jayaram (both Ind) bt Krushmi Chedda (Ind) and Kavitha Krishnamurthy (Can) 6-0, 6-3; Ivanina Israilova (Uzb) and Napaporn Tongsalee (Thai) bt Wilawan Choptang (Thai) and Shruti Dhawan (Ind) 6-1, 7-6(4).
