Maria Kirilenko

Among the many off-court events held during the Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha, one of the most important was a cheque presentation made at the end-of-season players' party. With Nadia Petrova and Dinara Safina on hand, it was announced that in the course of 2008 the Tour's players had served enough aces at €10 a pop to raise €105,450 (around $132,000) for the international housing charity, Habitat for Humanity.
 

The last batch of first round matches and the first second round matches took the courts of the Generali Ladies Linz on Wednesday, with no huge surprises at the $600,000, Tier II tournament.
 
The only seed left to play their first round match, Flavia Pennetta, had the quickest win of the day, crushing Agnes Szavay in just 54 minutes, 61 62. Pennetta, who just reached a new career-high ranking of No.14 this week, is the No.7 seed and will take on Dominika Cibulkova in the second round.
 

Maria Kirilenko beat Olga Savchuk of Ukraine 6-2, 7-5 Tuesday to reach the second round of the Generali Ladies.
 
The 30th-ranked Russian, who won her third WTA Tour title of the season in Seoul last month, went a break down in the second set before winning four straight games to close out the match.
 
Alona Bondarenko of Ukraine also advanced after beating Ekaterina Makarova of Russia 6-3, 6-3 and will next play fourth-seeded Patty Schnyder.
 

Venus Williams will have a shot at one of her true nemeses in the final of the Tennis.com Zürich Open on Sunday, as both she and Flavia Pennetta won tough semifinals on Saturday.
 

Daniela Hantuchova was the only singles seed in action on the first day of main draw play at the Tennis.com Zürich Open, and the 25-year-old's troubled comeback from injury continued as she fell in straight sets to Maria Kirilenko. It was also a bad day for France, with Amélie Mauresmo and Alizé Cornet both exiting the Tier II event.
 

Russia's Maria Kirilenko upset eighth-seeded Slovak Daniela Hantuchova 7-5, 6-2 on the opening day of the Zurich Open here Monday, as former world number one Amelie Mauresmo crashed out.
 
There was little to separate Kirilenko and Hantuchova in the first set of a match that rarely rose above the ordinary, as many of the games were closely fought and play went to deuce 16 times.
 
After breaks in the first two games, Hantuchova fought off five more break points until, with the Slovak leading 5-4, both players called for a medical time-out.

The draw for the 2008 TENNIS.com Zurich Open has been made, and one of the most attractive matches in the first round sees the 2006 runner-up Daniela Hantuchova face the dangerous Russian Maria Kirilenko. With two of the most photogenic players on the circuit on either side of the net, you can be sure there will be a number of photographers in the Hallenstadion as well as tennis connoisseurs.

The seeds came out for the first time in Moscow on Tuesday, as the first round of the $1.34-million Kremlin Cup continued in the Russian capital. Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva, both among the seeds and two of their country's five Top 10 players, both won in two sets.
 

Tennis is a territorial sport. China's Na Li held her ground when she beat Svetlana Kuznetsova in the Beijing Olympics and today Kuznetsova protected her home turf in delivering a 6-4, 7-5 victory at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow.
 
Kuznetsova, who has reached two finals in her last three events, built a 4-1 second-set lead and could have served out the match at 5-3, but squandered two match points to spark a brief surge by Li, who evened the match at 5-all. Kuznetsova broke for a 6-5 lead and closed the one hour, 55-minute match on her fourth match point.

The first round of the Kremlin Cup kicked off on Monday, with all three matches seeing underdogs taking out the favorites, although no seeded players were in action. The world's No.1 doubles team also made a strong start in their hunt for a ninth doubles title of the season.