Top seed Venus Williams in Elite semifinal

Top-seeded Venus Williams rallied to beat Saisai Zheng of China, 4-6, 6-1, 6-1 and advance to the semi-finals of the WTA Elite Trophy on Thursday.

Williams hit six aces and saved two of four break points to dispatch of Zheng, who was granted a wild-card berth.Zheng stormed out to a 5-1 lead in the first set with some aggressive groundstrokes. Williams caught up to 5-4 before the Chinese player closed the opening set after 44 minutes.

“You could see that she played amazing and she really is a future champion,” Williams said of Zheng.“First set, wow, she played so well until the last point. She definitely deserved to get the wildcard into this tournament. She has a lot of talent and there are definitely great things for her in the future.”

The win extends Williams record to 2-0 in Group A.The tournament brings together 11 of the top players who did not qualify for last week’s WTA Finals in Singapore, including Caroline Wozniacki, and Roberta Vinci.