Kuznetsova First Into Semis; Azarenka Follows Quickly

The first semifinal spots were snapped up at the Sony Ericsson Open on Tuesday, with former champion Svetlana Kuznetsova the first to advance, splitting sets with Caroline Wozniacki before cruising into the semis. Victoria Azarenka joined her.

Kuznetsova, a champion here three years ago and the No.8 seed this year, seemed to be cruising to a straight set win as she built a 64 52 lead, even holding three match points at 64 53. But the No.13-seeded Wozniacki roared back to take the second set to a tie-break, even rallying from a mini-break once there to push the match to a third set. Kuznetsova was too tough though, losing one more game along the way to prevail against the fast-rising Danish youngster, 64 67(5) 61.

Kuznetsova's projected quarterfinal opponent was Elena Dementieva, but the No.4 seed lost to Wozniacki in straight sets in the round of 16 on Monday.

It hasn't been a great start to the year for Kuznetsova, until now. She fell in the quarterfinals of her first two events in Australia, including a crushing 57 75 61 defeat to Serena Williams at the Australian Open - a match where she led, 75 53. In her third and fourth Sony Ericsson WTA Tour tournaments of the season, at prestigious stops in Dubai and Indian Wells, she lost her opening matches - to a qualifier in the United Arab Emirates and to a wildcard in Californian desert.

A tough win over Tamira Paszek in her first match of the Sony Ericsson Open seems to have propelled Kuznetsova to some of her best tennis again, as she has recaptured her all-court magic to go all the way to the semifinals, at least.

"I came here after losing first round two tournaments in a row. I was practicing and preparing well, so when I came here I was so disappointed," Kuznetsova said. "I haven't lost two first rounds in a row as long as I can remember. So for me here, it was really important to just play match by match. Now I'm in the semis, and I'm really happy. I'm just going to concentrate on the semis now."

The second quarterfinal of the day took place under the lights and No.11 seed Azarenka was in stellar form, needing just 57 minutes to take down the unseeded Samantha Stosur, 61 60. Azarenka was also a semifinalist at Indian Wells.

"It feels great. I've been playing very well the last four weeks. I want to keep going," Azarenka said. "Sam has a great serve and my return was very important today. I was hitting it very well and starting to put pressure on her right away."

Azarenka has lost all three of her meetings with Kuznetsova but in their only encounter at Miami, in the early rounds of last year's event, the Belarusian led 61 52 and had a match point at 61 53 before losing control and falling, 16 75 60.

"I've never beaten her before," Azarenka continued. "She's a great player. Obviously she has been playing very well this tournament, too. She had a great win today. I just want to keep going and play the same way I played today. Better if it's possible. And that's it. I just want to try my best in that match."

The other two quarterfinals, pitting No.1 seed Serena Williams against Li Na and No.5 seed Venus Williams against No.26 seed Iveta Benesova, are Wednesday.