JORDANNE Whiley could secure the Paralympics singles medal she craves tomorrow.

The fourth seed, who lives in Steventon, faces Dutch No 1 Diede de Groot in the semi-finals.

Whiley has twice won doubles bronze at the Games, but has never previously been beyond the singles quarter-finals.

If the 29-year-old beats her rival she will be guaranteed at least silver, while even a defeat would see the 13-time Grand Slam winner play for third place and a potential medal.

Whiley dropped just four games in the first two rounds, beating Colombia’s Angelica Bernal and Manami Tanaka, from Japan, but dug deep for a 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 roller coaster victory over American Dana Mathewson.

The Oxfordshire-based player went 5-2 up in the third set and was seemingly on course to triumph, but her opponent – and friend – pulled it back to 5-5.

Whiley said: “To be honest I thought I was done, but the 6-5 game was really big for me.

“I just had to find an extra ten per cent.

“This is the first time I’ve actually played a match in the day here in Tokyo and in that second set I was really struggling and feeling a bit sick.

“I needed that 20 minutes out, literally sat in front of a fan trying to get my body temperature down.

“I kept saying to myself ‘this is not for me, this is for my son’ and that helped find a bit of motivation to go out there and give it everything I had.”

Whiley has already declared her fourth Paralympics will be her last, as she targets the one medal missing from her glittering CV.

Having returned to the international circuit in early 2019 after the birth of son Jackson one year earlier, she is not short of inspiration.

Whiley said: “I was not happy with my serve and I knew I had to serve it out there (at 6-5).

“My only thing was to just get it in the box and deal with everything after.

“I’m really proud of myself, mentally, for pulling through that.

“That’s a really big win for me to get into the semi-finals.

“I’ve got two shots at a medal, which is an amazing place to be and I don’t want to have any regrets when I come off the court.”

The World No 4 and fellow Team GB athlete Lucy Shuker are also due to face Chinese pair Ziying Wang and Zhenzhen Zhu in the women’s doubles semi-finals, with their match rescheduled to tomorrow.