Zheng reaches first career grass-court semis, Zhang exits from doubles

China's Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen reached the semifinals on grass for the first time in her career as she knocked out home sensation Emma Raducanu 6-2, 6-4 at the Queen's Club Championships on Friday.

Zheng, 22, entered the WTA 500 tournament as the top seed and received a bye in the first round.

She needed two hours and 11 minutes to beat McCartney Kessler from the United States 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 in the second round on Thursday and seemed to repeat the story on Friday as she was broken twice at the beginning of the second set.

When Raducanu was facing break points in the sixth game of the first set, Zheng asked for a timeout to change into new trainers before breaking Raducanu for the first time.

Zheng will face Amanda Anisimova on Saturday as the American defeated Emma Navarro 6-3, 6-3.

The other semifinal will be between Australian Open champion Madison Keys from the United States and German qualifier Tatjana Maria.

In the women's doubles, China's Zhang Shuai and her Australian partner Ellen Perez held serve to start their semifinal against Anna Danilina and Diana Shnaider.

But the third seeds lost the set 6-3 when 29-year old Perez hit the net.

Zhang and Perez led 2-1 in the second set when Perez nailed a tough volley. The Aussie did it again on the next point and they went on to win the set 6-2 to force a ten-point tiebreaker.

Zhang and Perez led 5-2, but Kazkhstan's Danilina and her Russian partner Shnaider came back to win it 11-9 to reach the final.