Zhang Shuai booked her place in the last four of the Japan Women's Open on Friday with a 6-4 7-5 victory over defending champion Zarina Diyas.
Diyas was crowned champion in Tokyo last year with a win over home hope Miyu Kato, but there will no repeat for the Kazakh in Hiroshima.
Top seed Zhang broke her opponent twice in each set en route to a semi-final meeting with the unseeded Amanda Anisimova, who overcame Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 6-3 6-1.
And there could be an all-Chinese final at this hard-court event, after Wang Qiang progressed to the last four thanks to a routine 6-2 6-2 defeat of Magda Linette, the runner-up in 2015.
Wang will have to wait to discover the identity of her semi-final opponent, however, after Ajla Tomljanovic and Hsieh Su-wei's match was interrupted by rain in the first game and put back to Saturday.
