Fleming and Rae ready to shoot down English mixed doubles rivals

While Jamie Murray has struggled in the Indian heat at the Commonwealth Games - Fleming and Rae have sparkled, pulling of one of the shocks of the tournament last night. They downed home favourites and second seeds Leander Paes and Sania Mirza to reach the semi-finals of the mixed doubles in the inaugural tennis event at the Commonwealth Games.

In the last match on Centre Court, Fleming and Rae silenced the partisan home crowd as they won 6-4, 6-4 and, in the process, guaranteed themselves at least two more matches and a chance of a medal, a remarkable achievement for two players who had never played mixed doubles together before the start of the Games.

"The atmosphere on court really helped us," said Fleming. "It was just great fun playing in it and we both played really well. We know the guys we're playing later today pretty well and it should be a good match. We'll definitely be gunning for it."

After the match, a delighted Rae said: "That was amazing. It's the best atmosphere I've ever played in and even though it was a bit intimidating we both got a real buzz from it and ended up thriving off it.

"The match tonight is only the second match I've ever played with Colin and I haven't played much mixed doubles recently but we played really well together - in fact it's the best I've ever played and it's such a satisfying feeling."

The winners of the match will progress to the final to contest the gold and silver medals whilst the runners up will face a bronze medal play-off against the other losing semi-finalists.

Pete Nicholson, tennis Team Leader, was just as delighted as the players, adding: "This really was an astonishing victory for our guys over two very good Indian players, who were playing in front of their home crowd. Both Colin and Joss raised their game unbelievably well - they hardly missed a ball all night!"