Jamie Murray's success-filled Wimbledon continues after he and women's world number three Jelena Jankovic reached the mixed doubles semi-finals.

The Scottish-Serbian partnership, thrown together on a whim, combined superbly to beat ninth seeds Marcin Matkowski (Poland) and Cara Black (Zimbabwe) in a thrilling quarter-final which spanned two hours and 32 minutes.

They squandered five match points before eventually winning 7-6 (7-1) 6-7 (4-7) 7-5 in a match of only three breaks of serve that was played out in front of a packed crowd on Court Three.

Murray called for a medical time-out three games into the second set in order to have strapping applied to his right foot but made light of the problem to make up for the absence of his injured younger brother Andy, the British number one.

Murray and Jankovic, who had never played mixed doubles before Wimbledon, were both forced to save break points in their opening service games but grew more comfortable on their serve as the match went on.

They cruised through a first-set tie-break and had a match point in the second before, urged on by a passionate crowd, they held it together in the deciding set.

Matkowski relied heavily on his experienced partner in the rallies but the Zimbabwean, a winner of the mixed doubles two years ago, was always the more vulnerable on her serve and she became the first player to crack in the third game of the third set.

Jankovic double-faulted on break point five games later but restored the break with a series of searing ground strokes.

She then held her nerve in a tension-filled 12th game in which the Polish-Zimbabwe pair saved a four further match points to serve out for victory.

They will meet Canada's Daniel Nestor and Russian Elena Likhovtseva, who ended the other British interest with a 6-3 7-6 (7-4) win over Alex Bogdanovic and Melanie South, for a place in Sunday's final.