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Top seed Sabine Lisicki and third seeded Karolina Pliscova won their respective matches to advance to the semi-finals of the Prudential Hong Kong Tennis Open at the Victoria Park Tennis Stadium in Hong Kong on Friday.

The 24-year-old wild card entry was broken twice in the first set by Saisai Zheng of China but came back and broke the Chinese three times to take the set.

The 2013 Wimbledon finalist committed three double faults and was broken again by Zheng in the second set but the German came back strong and broke back the 20-year-old three times as well to finish the match 6-4 6-3.

Lisicki will face Italian Francesca Schiavone in the semis who defeated seventh seeded Jana Cepelova in two straight sets 6-2 6-2.

Another Chinese woman went down against Czech Republic's Pliscova as she completely dominated fifth seed Jie Zheng in the other quarter-finals match 6-1 6-3.

"I stand a good chance to be in the final and maybe winning," Pliscova said. "But there are still some very good players left and I will have to play well if I'm to win in Hong Kong."

The 22-year-old Pliscova will be facing Alison Van Uytvanck of Belgium who upset second seed Daniela Hantuchova in the second round and defeated Australian qualifier Jarmila Gajdosova in the quarters 6-4 6-2.

Van Uytvanck, 20, almost made it to the third round at the recent Wimbledon Championships but lost eight point to six in the tie-breaking set against 10^th seeded Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia.

Pliscova's best performance in a Grand Slam was at the recent U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows New York where she reached the third round but was defeated by Australian Casey Dellacqua in three sets.

However, Pliscova made an impression in the tournament as she upset eighth seed Ana Ivanovic in the second round.

Tagssabine Lisicki, Karolina Pliscova, Jie Zheng, Ana Ivanovic, Saisai Zheng