Help arrived, though, from unexpected quarters — a bee sting caused medical attention to be directed towards Sandy at a crucial phase in the match, and Sunitha saw her chance to get right back in contention.

She successfully overturned a one-set loss, and Sandy’s restricted movement was an added bonus as the winners kept coming off the Indian’s racket.

The battle in this 2-6, 6-2, 6-1 victory for Sunitha was considerably less in magnitude by the time the match reached its rather tame end, but the Indian was relieved at making it to the semi-finals, and a career-best ranking.

“I’m just glad I got through; it was very ugly out there,” was how she summed up the match. “The last two times I played her, she was definitely much better than this, but today, I had more problems with myself than her. I was struggling, and I needed time to settle down.

“The ball was flying everywhere in the first set. She gets a lot of balls back, but I told myself I had to stick to my own game, put more spin and swing more agressively. There are going to be days when you dont play well, but you have to be able to turn it around,” she added.

In the semi-final, she will take on fifth seed Estonian Margit Ruutel, who defeated Varatchaya Wongteanchai of Thailand 6-4, 6-1.

The other semi-final pits Anastasija Sevastova of Latvia against Uzbekistan’s Vlada Eshkibarova.