CARA Black and Liezel Huber are through to the semi-finals of the Toray Pan Pacific Open women’s tennis tournament in Tokyo, Japan.
Black of Zimbabwe and her American partner Huber, who are the top seeds, made it into the last four after beating second seeds Flavia Pennetta of Italy and Lisa Raymond of the United States 6-2, 7-6 (2) in the quarter-finals.

It took co-world number ones Black and Huber less than 30 minutes to win the first set 6-2 but they were made to sweat in the second in which Pennetta and Raymond fought for every point.Black and Huber were pushed all the way in the second set, which they finally won via a tiebreak (7-2), to march into the last four.

To reach quarter-finals, Black and Huber defeated wildcard entries Victoria Azarenka of Belarus and Russia’s Svetlana Kuznetsova in the first round on Monday.In Monday’s first round tie, Black and Huber were given a rough ride by Azarenka and Kuznetsova who stretched them to three sets before the top seeds prevailed 7-5, 4-6, 10-7. Meanwhile, crowd-favourite Maria Sharapova of Russia stormed into the Pan Pacific singles quarter-finals by beating fellow Russian Alisa Kleybanova.

The former world number one, the champion in Tokyo in 2005, fired an array of lightning service return winners to come from behind to win 2-6, 6-2, 6-2 against her 29th-ranked compatriot.Sharapova, ranked 25th, double-faulted on a break point to lose the opening game and failed to recover the deficit as she hit a backhand shot that flew into the net on Kleybanova’s first set point.But Sharapova was never really in danger after, finishing her fellow Russian off in just over two hours.

Another former world number one, Jelena Jankovic of Serbia, dominated Elena Vesnina before the Russian abandoned the match with a left thigh problem at 6-1, 3-0.The seventh seed is the highest-ranked player left after some notable early casualties.

World number one and defending champion Dinara Safina, fellow Russians Kuznetsova and Elena Dementieva, and American Venus Williams have all gone.In the quarter-finals, Jankovic will take on 14th seed Marion Bartoli of France, who outclassed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia 4-6, 6-2, 7-5.

Sharapova will play Iveta Benesova of the Czech Republic, winner over qualifier Chang Kai-chen of Taiwan 7-5, 6-2.Chang shocked Safina in the second round on Monday. In other third-round action, Asia’s number one Li Na of China came from a set down and 4-5 to beat Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine 2-6, 7-5, 6-3.