Elina Svitolina stood on the brink of a damaging quarter-final defeat at the Hong Kong Tennis Open when play was cancelled due to rain on Friday.

The top seed, who has an opportunity to secure her place at the WTA Finals a week early, was in trouble as she trailed Chinese star Wang Qiang 6-2 5-2.

Wang was set to serve for the match when rain stopped play and the pair will return to the court ahead of the semi-finals on Saturday, with Svitolina facing a huge uphill battle if she is to add points to her bid to reach Singapore.

Garbine Muguruza awaits the winner of that tie after she reached her first semi-final since the French Open in June. The two-time grand slam champion defeated Luksika Kumkhum 6-2 7-5 and said: "I'm very happy with the way I'm playing so far. Luksika played great and made it a real battle out there."

Muguruza has won three consecutive matches for the first time since her run to the last four at Roland Garros, not dropping a single set this week and breaking a streak of seven straight exits in the second or third round.

On the other side of the draw, Shuai Zhang dumped out seventh seed Daria Gavrilova 6-1 6-3 to secure a last-four meeting with Dayana Yastremska, who defeated Kristina Kucova 7-6 (8-6) 6-2.