Great Britain's tennis players are guaranteed to play for two medals at the 22nd Summer Deaflympics after Catherine Fletcher reached the women's singles and women's doubles semi-final with Bethany Brookes on Tuesday's fifth day of play in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Seventh seed Fletcher fought back from a set and 4-2 down to beat German fourth seed Verena Fleckenstein, the women's singles silver medallist at the 2012 European Deaf Tennis Championships, 5-7, 7-5, 6-2 in her women's singles quarter-final.
The seven-time National champion will now play world No. 1 and top seed Chiu-Mei Ho of Chinese Taipei, with Fletcher aiming to avenge her loss to Ho in the quarter-finals of the women's singles at the Taipei Deaflympics in 2009.
"I am absolutely knackered. The singles was physically and mentally tough, but it feels so great to win," said Fletcher. "I have an extremely tough semi now on Thursday against the world No. 1, so I will make sure I recover properly and give it my all."
Later in the day Brookes and Fletcher came from 3-2 down in the opening set of their women's doubles quarter-final against Italian fourth seeds Barbara Oddone and Susanna Ricci Bitti to take the opening set 6-3. The British duo then secured an immediate break to lead the second set 2-0 and went on to complete a 6-3, 6-3 victory over the bronze medallists from the last Deaflympics in Taipei in 2009.
"We're really pleased with our result today. We knew it was going to be a tricky match, but managed to come through it and played well as a team throughout," said Brookes. "There are lots of positives to take in to the semis."
Brookes and Fletcher will now play Chinese Taipei second seeds Chiu-Mei Ho and Hsiu-Hsiang Ho in Wednesday's semi-finals, when Catherine Fletcher will also partner her husband Lewis Fletcher in the mixed doubles quarter-finals.
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