Tennis News

Victoria Azarenka of Belarus advanced to her third final of the WTA season, defeating Australian top seed Samantha Stosur 6-2, 6-3 on Saturday at the Bank of the West Classic.

Azarenka, who won on her 21st birthday, will play for the title on Sunday against the winner of a later semifinal between Polish third seed Agnieszka Radwanska and Russian fifth seed Maria Sharapova.

"I'm happy with the way I played," Azarenka said. "I'm finally injury-free and I'm enjoying my time on the court.

Third-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova has advanced to the final of the Istanbul Cup with a 7-6 (1), 2-6, 7-5 win over Australian Jarmila Groth.

She will play another Russian, Elena Vesnina, who upset sixth-seeded Andrea Petkovic of Germany, 1-6, 6-0, 7-6 (2) in the other semifinal on Saturday.

The No 29-ranked Pavlyuchenkova fended off strong serving from Groth, who had 11 aces. The victory gives the Russian her best tournament showing since she won her first WTA Tour singles title at the Monterrey Open in Mexico in March.

Sorana Cirstea, one of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour's brightest hopes who recently turned 20, had some unique preparation for the summer season. How did the Romanian rising star get ready?

"I just came to Istanbul two days ago from Las Vegas. I was there for two weeks training with the adidas team. I was doing fitness training with Gil Reyes, the trainer of Andre Agassi, and also with Darren Cahill. Andre came by one day and I played with Steffi Graf for two days in a row. It was amazing.

Eighth-seeded Juan Ignacio Chela routed top-seeded Nikolay Davydenko 6-2, 6-1 on Friday to reach the Croatia Open semifinals.

Davydenko, from Russia, only held serve once against Chela, the Argentine who will play Potito Starace of Italy on Saturday.

Starace beat No. 3 Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia 6-4, 7-6 (6).

Top seeded Andy Murray, who is looking for his first ATP title of the year, has beaten Alejandro Falla 7-6 (7/3), 6-1 in the quarter-finals of the 600,000 dollar Farmers Classic.

Murray advances to the semi-finals where he will face Spanish fourth seed Feliciano Lopez who beat struggling American James Blake 3-6, 7-6 (8/6), 6-4.

 Second seed and champion Sam Querrey survived a shaky third set to reach the LA Open semi-finals with a nail-biting 6-2 3-6 7-6 victory over German veteran Rainer Schuettler on Friday.

The big-serving American trailed 4-5 in the deciding set but twice broke the German as his opponent served for the match before clinching the tiebreak 7-4 at the LA Tennis Center.

Querrey, who beat Australian Carsten Ball in last year's final, will meet either Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis or Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia in the last four.

Samantha Stosur will have her chance at revenge on Saturday, after beating Yanina Wickmayer to reach the semis of Stanford, where she will face one of her toughest opponents, Victoria Azarenka. Stosur, the No.1 seed at the Premier-level tournament, fought for almost two hours to beat No.7 seed Wickmayer on Friday afternoon, 75 36 63. Stosur was serving 0-2, 15-40 in the third set before bouncing back into form, winning six of the last seven games to close out the one-hour, 52-minute match.

Samantha Stosur will have her chance at revenge on Saturday, after beating Yanina Wickmayer to reach the semis of Stanford, where she will face one of her toughest opponents, Victoria Azarenka. Stosur, the No.1 seed at the Premier-level tournament, fought for almost two hours to beat No.7 seed Wickmayer on Friday afternoon, 75 36 63. Stosur was serving 0-2, 15-40 in the third set before bouncing back into form, winning six of the last seven games to close out the one-hour, 52-minute match.

Elena Vesnina was on a seven match losing streak before this week, her last victory having come in April. In fact, she fell outside the Top 50 earlier this month for the first time in more than a year. But she has shaken off her slump at the Istanbul Cup, where she has yet to drop a set in three matches this week. Vesnina, currently ranked 60th, defeated Anastasia Rodionova, 75 61, on Friday to raise her career record to 4-0 against the Australian.

Victoria Azarenka overcame a slow start to upset holder Marion Bartoli 3-6 6-3 6-3 in the quarter-finals of the Stanford Classic Friday.

Top seed Samantha Stosur of Australia, however, managed to squeak through in a 7-5 3-6 6-3 victory over Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium.

While the fourth seeded Bartoli was seeded higher than the eighth-seeded Azarenka, the 20-year-old Belarussian had beaten the Frenchwoman in their three previous meetings so the outcome was not a surprise.