BROMYARD'S Janet McMorran reached the semi-finals of the ladies' main draw singles at the Dornbirn Open Wheelchair Tennis Champion-ships in Austria before being beaten by top seed and eventual tournament winner Maaike Smit, of the Netherlands.

British number one and third seed McMorran began her challenge in great fashion, disposing of unseeded Dutch player Carla Peplinkhuizen 6-1, 6-0 in her opening match before going on to beat sixth seeded German Britta Siegers, 6-4, 6-1.

However, World number two Smit proved a difficult proposition in the semi-finals and, after McMorran had lost the first set on just one decisive break of serve, the Dutch player went on to record a 6-4, 6-1 victory.

Despite being beaten by Smit in the last four in Austria, McMorran has moved up two places to World number seven in this week's official ITF Wheelchair Tennis Rankings.

The Austrian tournament, a Championship Series 1 event on the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour, was the first international tournament of the year for Hereford's Matthew Faucher. Given a wild card entry into the men's main draw singles, World number 76 Faucher was beaten 6-1, 6-1 by fellow wild card entry Stefen Sommerfeld, of Germany, in the first round.

This took Faucher into the consolsation singles, but he was again unable to go beyond the first round, this time being beaten 6-1, 6-4 by second seeded Austrian Stefan Krieghofer.