Sania Mirza maintained her winning run in the Aegon Classic, beating Hungary's Melinda Czink 6-1, 7-6(4) in the quarter-finals in Birmingham on Friday.
The Indian ace breezed through the first set in 27 minutes, breaking her 16th seeded opponent, who committed six double faults, twice.
The second set though was a keener contest. After both players held serve, it was the Indian ace who got erratic and trailed 15-40 in the fourth game. She did well to save a break-point but conceded the game after serving her third double fault of the set.
However, she regained composure and broke back immediately to level the set score 3-3.
Sania broke Czink again in the ninth game and raced to her first match-point at 5-4, 40-30, but the Hungarian saved it and went on to break Sania to level scores 5-5.
Czink then held to go 6-5 up and looked like taking the match to the decider as Sania fell behind 0-30 on serve. But the Indian fought her way back to draw parity and force the tie-break.
In the shoot-out, Sania broke for a 3-2 lead and had it all wrapped up at 6-4, clinching victory on her second match-point.
Sania meets the winner of the match between Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia and Urszula Radwanska for a place in Sunday's final.
Earlier, fourth seeded Chinese Na Li entered the semi-finals with a 6-3, 7-6(3) victory over 19-year old Swiss Stefanie Voegele.
