Tenth seed Flavia Pennetta of Italy defeated Australian 13th seed Samantha Stosur 6-4 6-3 in the final of the LA Women's Tennis Championships presented by Herbalife to claim her eighth and biggest singles title.

Stosur committed eight double faults and was broken four times, including three in the second set. In addition, the 25-year-old Stosur made 32 unforced errors, compared to Pennetta's 16.

Last year's LA finalist Pennetta pulled off two Top 10 upsets to reach the final. She defeated Nadia Petrova and Vera Zvonareva in back-to-back matches, before overcoming former world No.1 Maria Sharapova in the semifinals.

Pennetta is now on an 11-match winning streak, winning back-to-back titles in Palermo and Los Angeles. Doubles specialist Stosur, who has 22 doubles titles to her name, fell to 0-5 in singles finals after this latest defeat.

Winning the LA Women's Tennis Championships title Pennetta earned $107,000. Interestinlgy, although it's Pennetta's eighth singles title, it's only her second one from a non-claycourt tournament. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

As announced a few days ago, tennis has again found a completely new place to be played on – Kim Clijsters and Elena Dementieva played a match in the middle of a fountain.

A special tennis court was located in an extraordinary place – inside a fountain set against the "Eiffel Tower" at the Kings Island entrance.

Former world number one Kim Clijsters commented on the new experience:

I never thought that my comeback would start with a match in the middle of a fountain! I couldn’t be happier playing a tennis match with Elena in the fountains of Kings Island and sharing my excitement of being back on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour with the tennis fans of Ohio at the Western & Southern Financial Group event.

Previous innovative Sony Ericsson stunts included playing tennis on water, on car rooftops in Miami, in a metro station in Madrid, on a desert island, and on the terrace of Villa Miani in Rome. And yet again, I have no idea what innovative location could be next. (source: On the Baseline)

Australian Samantha Stosur decisively defeated unseeded Romanian Sorana Cirstea 6-3 6-2 and advanced to her first final this season. The 19-year-old Cirstea, ranked 28th in the world, had upset Caroline Wozniacki and Agnieszka Radwanska en route to the semifinals.

No.13 seed Stosur has played four singles finals on the WTA Tour, and has won 22 doubles titles, but singles titles are still lacking in her résumé and she will be looking for her first one this weekend at the LA Women's Tennis Championships presented by Herbalife.

Tenth-seed Flavia Pennetta of Italy edged an unseeded Russian Maria Sharapova 6-2 4-6 6-3. Sharapova, still trying to find the form she lost due to the long shoulder-injury layoff, hit 61 unforced errors, which included 16 double faults.

The 61st-ranked Russian said she had made good accomplishments, but there was a lot of room for progress as well, which takes time.

Stosur was a semifinalist last week in Stanford, while Pennetta, last year’s runner-up in Los Angeles, is on a 10-match winning streak, having come to LA after winning the trophy in Palermo.

Stosur and Pennetta will play each other for the first time. (photos via Ralf Reinecke and chascow)

The quarterfinals of the LA Women’s Tennis Championships are over and we have our semifinalists: Maria Sharapova will play Flavia Pennetta, and Samantha Stosur will face Sorana Cirstea.

Maria Sharapova claimed a straight-set win over Poland’s Urszula Radwanska, but it was far from easy – the Russian broke Radwanska only once in the first set, in the 18-point third game, and was 3-5 down in the second set. The final score was 6-4 7-5.

Seed No.10 Flavia Pennetta defeated second seed Vera Zvonareva 6-4 6-2, and thus earned her tenth Top 10 win. Pennetta is now on a nine-match winning streak, having won in Palermo prior to playing the LA tournament.

Sharapova and Penneta will meet in the semis. They have played each other two times so far, but their last encounter was over three years ago.

No.13 seed Samantha Stosur rallied from 6-4 3-1 down to beat No.14 seed Zheng Jie 4-6 6-3 6-4, the winner over world No.1 Dinara Safina in the third round. Stosur will play Soraca Cirstea in the semis, after the Romanian won a marathon with No.8 seed Agnieszka Radwanska 7-6(4) 1-6 7-5.

Stosur easily won the only meeting with Cirstea, which was in this year's French Open quarterfinals. (photos courtesy of Stephane Martinache and Bobby)

Last week we reported that Tamira Paszek was facing a provisional suspension while officials investigated whether the blood reinjection she had received violated doping regulations. The latest news is that the Austrian tennis player won’t be suspended.

The disciplinary committee of Austria's anti-doping agency said that Paszek can play on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour at least until a verdict is reached in about seven weeks.

The 18-year-old, who has in one week dropped from No.66 to No.88 in the rankings, hasn’t played since retiring in the opening round of Wimbledon. (source: ESPN, photo courtesy of Women Who Serve)

China's Zheng Jie recorded one of the biggest wins of her career by beating world No.1 Dinara Safina 7-5 4-6 6-4 at the $700,000 2009 LA Women’s Tennis Championships presented by Herbalife.

The 23nd-ranked Zheng had beaten a world No.1 before – Ana Ivanovic in the third round of last year's Wimbledon – but had never beaten Safina.

"She’s a good player and it’s tough to play her," said Safina after the third-round defeat. "In this match I didn’t do the right things. I should have played better. Today, she took her chances and beat me."

Zheng, the 14th seed, will next face Australian 13th seed Samantha Stosur, who dominated current world No.11 Ana Ivanovic 6-3 6-2 in the third round. Stosur has scored her sixth win over a Top 15 opponent this year. Also, she has defeated former top-ranked players in consecutive weeks, having beaten Serena Williams in the Stanford quarterfinals.

World No.61 Maria Sharapova, after upsetting third seed Victoria Azarenka in the previous round, rebounded from a slow first-set start for the second straight day and defeated Alona Bondarenko 4-6 6-0 6-3. In the quarterfinals, Sharapova will face Poland's Urszula Radwanska, who got a walkover from No.12 seed Li Na due to a right knee injury. (photo via Sony Ericsson WTA Tour)

World number four Elena Dementieva and former top-ranked player Kim Clijsters will play a tennis match Saturday, August 8, in the large water fountains at Kings Island.

"The specially made court will be placed on top of one of the middle fountains which will be turned off so the court can go on top of it," said Kings Island spokesman Don Helbig.

"But the water will be spraying up from the sides around it and behind it down the middle as you go from the front of the fountains to the tower."

Clijsters is making her return to competitive tennis at the Western & Southern Financial Grp Women’s Open which starts August 10. (source: Oxford Press via On the Baseline, photos: Mister-E)

Two months ago we showed Ana Ivanovic’s dresses for the 2009 US Open, and now they have been confirmed by the tennis star's official website.

Ivanovic will, for the first time in her partnership with adidas, have both day and night dress for a Grand Slam. The purple adidas Adilibria dress Ivanovic will wear during the day session. At night, the 11th-ranked Serb will sport the darker version.

World number one Dinara Safina is the first player to qualify for this year’s Sony Ericsson Championships.

Safina, who has reached the top of the rankings on April 20 and has not left the position since, will make her second appearance at the Sony Ericsson Championships, having qualified for the event last year.

The prestigious season-ending tournament will be held in Doha, Qatar, for the second tennis season in a row. The world’s Top 8 singles players and Top 4 doubles teams from the 2009 season will fight for a share of the prize money of $4.45 million. (source: Sony Ericsson WTA Tour)

Young tennis star Caroline Wozniacki had a moment of living the dreams of women worldwide, meeting celebrated soccer player, and model we can add, David Beckham.

Wozniacki met some Los Angeles Galaxy players, and hence she had the pleasure of meeting Beckham as well.

Additional info: World No.8 Caroline Wozniacki is seeded fourth at the LA Women's Tennis Championships. The Dane is playing Romania's Sorana Cirstea in the second round. (source: Sony Ericsson WTA Tour)