BIRMINGHAM - Chinese top seed Zheng Jie was dumped out of the WTA tournament in the third round here on Thursday by Slovakian Magdalena Rybarikova.

Rybarikova, seeded 13, won 7-6 (12/10), 6-4 in a busy day of tennis that saw most players out twice on the courts.

India's Sania Mirza moved into the quarter-finals with a 7-6 (7/3), 3-6, 6-2 victory over Russian fifth seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Mirza demonstrated that she is fully recovered from a career-threatening wrist injury with an impressive performance against the world number 31.

Pavlyuchenkova, 17, had already beaten Britian's Elena Baltacha in three tough sets earlier on Thursday and Mirza took advantage of the teenager's tiredness to continue her superb start to the grass-court season.

Zheng, who was given a bye into the second round, had earlier opened her delayed campaign with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Britain's Melanie South.

But her country's flag-bearing has been left to fourth seed Li Na, who had to survive a tough examination before winning her second round match against Slovakian Jarmila Groth.

Li, who became the first Chinese to reach the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam at Wimbledon, took the first set comfortably but was blown away in the second and needed an impressive final set rally to progress 6-4, 2-6, 6-1.

She then saw off France's Aravane Rezai 7-5, 6-4 to book her spot in the quarter-finals.

Former Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova wasted little time finishing off her delayed match against American Alexa Glatch.

The score stood at 6-3, 5-4 to Sharapova when rain halted play the previous day and the Russian quickly broke her opponent to win 6-3, 6-4.

Sharapova was soon back on court and continued her recovery from the shoulder injury which has hampered her for several months with a 6-1, 6-3 win over Italian seventh seed Francesca Schiavone in the third round.

"It was definitely a little bit strange not finishing yesterday and coming back today," said Sharapova, who has won the title in Edgbaston on two previous occasions.

"It could have only taken a few minutes to finish or another hour. But I did the right things in both matches today and played really well. Overall, it was a good day." -AFP