Second seed Rushmi Chakravarthi and third seed Sai Jayalaksmi, both from India, sailed into the women's singles semi-finals in the $10,000 ITF-Futures tennis tournament at the Cricket Club of India courts in Mumbai on Thursday.

In the quarter-finals, Rushmi, playing a solid base-line game, sidelined unseeded Zsuzsanna Babos of Hungary 6-3, 6-4 in an hour and 15 minutes while Sai Jayalakshmi needed a first set tie-break to subdue eighth seed Wilawan Choptang of Thailand 7-6 (7-3), 6-1 in an hour and 25 minutes.

However, two other Indians failed to progress. Qualifier Archana Venkatraman was stopped by fifth seed Chin-Bee Khoo of Malaysia 2-6, 3-6 while sixth seed Megha Vakharia went down fighting to fourth seed Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan 4-6, 5-7.

Rushmi looked much fitter and faster than her Hungarian opponent. The Indian did not need much time to settle down. She broke Babos in the second and fourth games and despite dropping her own serve in the third game she led 3-1. With some fine passing shots on either flank she won the first set 6-3.

In the second set too, the Indian led 3-0 with breaks in the first and third games. However, the Hungarian fought back well to break Rushmi in the fourth game, and with another break in the eighth game, she levelled the scores at 4-4.

But Rushmi then came up with some breath-taking passing shots to break Babos in the ninth game before serving out the match at 6-4.