Sania through to last eight in Birmingham

Birmingham:

India's Sania Mirza moved into the quarter-finals at the WTA tournament on Thursday with a 7-6 (7/3), 3-6, 6-2 victory over Russian fifth seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Mirza demonstrated that she is fully recovered from a career-threatening wrist injury with an impressive performance against the world number 31.

Pavlyuchenkova, 17, had already beaten Britian's Elena Baltacha in three tough sets earlier on Thursday and Mirza took advantage of the teenager's tiredness to continue her superb start to the grass-court season.

Chinese top seed Zheng Jie opened her delayed campaign with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Britain's Melanie South.

Zheng was given a bye into the second round and, after rain postponed her match, she finally got onto court and made up for lost time with a routine victory.

Fourth seed Li Na, Zheng's compatriot, had to survive a tough examination before winning her second round match against Slovakian Jarmila Groth.

Li, who became the first Chinese to reach the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam at Wimbledon, took the first set comfortably but was blown away in the second and needed an impressive final set rally to progress 6-4, 2-6, 6-1.

Former Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova wasted little time finishing off her delayed match against American Alexa Glatch earlier on Thursday.

The score stood at 6-3, 5-4 to Sharapova when rain halted play the previous day and the Russian quickly broke her opponent to win 6-3, 6-4.

Sharapova was soon back on court and continued her recovery from the shoulder injury which has hampered her for several months with a 6-1, 6-3 win over Italian seventh seed Francesca Schiavone in the third round.