Kolkata: Sania Mirza won a battle of teenagers to upstage fourth seed Aravane Rezai and reach the semi-finals of the Kolkata Open on Friday.
Fifth-seed Mirza rallied from 4-1 down in the second set for a 6-4 7-5 victory over fellow 19-year-old Rezai, a French player of Iranian origin.
Mirza, who has struggled after a superb 2005 when she became the first Indian woman to win a WTA title and rose to 31 in the world, broke her rival in the ninth game to clinch the first set.
The hard-hitting Rezai broke Mirza in the fourth game to go 4-1 up in the next set, but dropped her serve in the seventh game to allow the home favourite back into the set.
The French player, who needed courtside treatment for shoulder trouble, lost serve again before Mirza served out for the match.
"It was a tough match," Mirza said after her best showing of the year. "She was hitting the ball so hard on the backhand."
Mirza is likely to face Swiss former world number one Martina Hingis, the top seed, who plays Thailand's Tamarine Tanasugarn in the last of the last eight matches.
Uzbek qualifier Iroda Tulyaganova rallied to beat Russia's Alla Kudryavtseva 4-6 6-2 6-2, continuing her excellent run as she returns to top flight tennis after a lengthy layoff following elbow surgery in 2003.
She meets another Russian in the last four after Olga Poutchkova saw off Italy's Alberta Brianti 7-5 6-3.
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