A stiff neck could not prevent Jelena Jankovic from battling to a 3-6 6-3 7-5 win over Maria Kirilenko in the third round of the Birmingham Classic on Friday. The second-seeded Serbian capitalised on a rare dry spell at the rain-hit tournament and was joined in the last eight by Chinese fourth seed Li Na and number five Marion Bartoli.
Top seed Maria Sharapova, however, was not as lucky as she had to make a dash for the locker room before she could even play a point. The Russian's match against Austrian Tamira Paszek will have to be played on Saturday, although the weather is unlikely to improve.