England, Egypt, Malaysia and the Netherlands all advanced to the semifinals on Thursday at the women's world team squash championships, while Canada was upset by Germany in its opening match in the consolation round.

England, the top-seed, defeated New Zealand 3-0. Tania Bailey defeated Shelley Kitchen 6-9, 9-7, 9-4, 9-2; Vicky Botwright took Jaclyn Hawkes 9-2, 9-4, 9-3 and Jenny Duncalf beat Louise Crome 9-0, 9-0. Botwright, Duncalf and Bailey are ranked fifth, sixth and seventh in the world respectively.

Egypt, seeded second, won 3-0 over South Africa in its quarter-final while number-four the Netherlands, led by world number-two Vanessa Atkinson, beat Ireland 3-0. Number-three Malaysia, with world number-one Nicole David, defeated France.

Friday's semifinal match-ups are England-the Netherlands and Malaysia-Egypt.

In the consolation round, the seventh-seed Canadians lost 2-1 to Germany with the deciding match going five games. Runa Reta of Ottawa opened the match with a 9-2, 9-0, 9-5 victory over Daniela Schumann. The Germans, seeded 13th, tied the match at 1-1 as Kathrin Rohrmuller defeated Melanie Jans 9-4, 5-9, 9-5, 9-3. In the deciding match Katharina Witt took Carolyn Russell of Winnipeg 9-7, 3-9, 4-9, 9-6, 9-4.

``It's disappointing,'' said Reta, Canada's number-one ranked player. ``We were hoping to fare better and certainly we wanted to get ninth place. We felt we had a real shot to beat the Germans but they were tough.''

Canada, now 1-3 in tournament play, can no longer finish better than 13th. Its next match is Friday against Austria at 3 p.m. All matches are at the Royal Glenora Club.