Upper Austria Ladies: Pavlyuchenkova into semi-finals

Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova beat Belgian Elise Mertens, the No 4 seed, 6-3, 6-2 to advance to the semi-finals of the Upper Austria Ladies at the TipsArena in Linz on Friday evening.

Pavlyuchenkova, ranked No 42, will play Latvian Jelena Ostapenko, the top seed, next.

The Russian won against Italian Martina Trevisan (6-4, 6-0) and Katie Boulter (7-6 (2), 6-4) ahead of her victory.

In the previous round of the Linz tournament, Mertens, ranked No 26, defeated Italian Lucia Bronzetti (6-1, 6-3).

Linz WTA 500, other last eight results (TipsArena, hard, USD 802.237, most recent results first):

• Jelena Ostapenko beat Jodie Burrage (Q): 6-1, 6-2
• Ekaterina Alexandrova (2) beat Anastasia Potapova (5): 6-2, 7-6 (8)
• Donna Vekic (3) beat Clara Burel: 6-0, 7-6 (3)