The Williams sisters saw off their semifinal opponents to reach the final of the $4,550,000 Sony Ericsson Championships – Doha 2009.

Jelena Jankovic entered the semifinals more due to luck than anything else. She lost the matches she played against healthy opponents, and won two thanks to injured Dinara Safina and Caroline Wozniacki. Today she won the first set but eventually lost to defending champion Venus Williams 5-7 6-3 6-4, who has thus moved to the finals.

Venus will next play sister Serena Williams, who had a 6-4 0-1 retirement victory when Caroline Wozniacki pulled out with a left abdominal strain after just 45 minutes of play. It is yet another unfortunate injury for Wozniacki this week, who had been troubled by a leg injury throughout the tournament.

Serena leads an all-time record against Venus 12-10, and is coming into the encounter with three successive victories over her sister, including the extremely tight one here in Doha a few days ago. (photo via Sony Ericsson WTA Tour)

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Jelena Jankovic had a very easy route to the semifinals of the Sony Ericsson Championships. After falling to Victoria Azarenka in her first round-robin match, the Serb won her second round-robin match with Dinara Safina retiring after just 12 minutes of play, and today her opponent was weary Caroline Wozniacki, who practically barely survived her yesterday’s match.

Prior to the encounter with Wozniacki, Jankovic had spent just 95 minutes on court, while the Dane spent five hours and 48 minutes. Jankovic beat Wozniacki 6-2 6-2. However, Wozniacki could  advance to the semifinals too, if Victoria Azarenka loses to Agnieszka Radwanska in the match which is currently in progress.

In the other match of the day, Svetlana Kuznetsova beat fellow Russian Elena Dementieva 6-3 6-2, and has thus sent Venus Williams into the semifinals.

The third secured semifinalist is Serena Williams, who has earned a perfect 3-0 result at this year’s Championships.

To sum up: Maroon Group semifinalists are Venus and Serena Williams and White Group semifinalists are Jelena Jankovic and Caroline Wozniacki/Victoria Azarenka. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

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It didn’t look like that in the beginning, but the match between Caroline Wozniacki and Vera Zvonareva turned into a dramatic encounter at the Sony Ericsson Championships.

Wozniacki let a 6-0 5-2 lead slip when Zvonareva evened at one set apiece after the second-set tiebreak in which she even saved two match points. Wozniacki built a 3-1 lead in the third set, but the leg that caused her withdrawal from Luxembourg last week stated hurting again. Then Zvonareva won four of the next five games for a 4-3 lead. Still, Wozniacki didn’t give up and despite pain and tears that I have to admit frightened me, the Dane won the match 6-0 6-7(3) 6-4.

The match against Zvonareva was Wozniacki's second marathon in two days. In her previous match she beat Victoria Azarenka after losing the first set and saving a match point in the third.

Zvonareva was last year’s runner-up and this year she entered the Championships as an alternate, after Dinara Safina’s withdrawal. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

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The field has been set for the inaugural Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions in Bali, a season-ending event featuring top ten highest-ranked players who have won an International tournament during the 2009 season but who are not competing at the Sony Ericsson Championships, which features the top eight singles players of the season.

LIST OF THE PLAYERS PARTICIPATING IN BALI

Direct Entrants
RANK (as of 10/26/09) / PLAYER / INTERNATIONAL TITLE/S WON
No.12 Marion Bartoli (Monterrey)
No.13 Samantha Stosur (Osaka)
No.19 Yanina Wickmayer (Estoril, Linz)
No.27 Anabel Medina Garrigues (Fes)
No.31 Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez (Bogota, Bastad)
No.32 Shahar Peer (Guangzhou, Tashkent)
No.39 Melinda Czink (Quebec City)
No.42 Agnes Szavay (Budapest)
No.44 Aravane Rezai (Strasbourg)
No.46 Magdalena Rybarikova (Birmingham)

Wildcards
No.25 Sabine Lisicki
No.100 Kimiko Date Krumm

The $600,000 Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions will take place November 4-8, 2009, and will feature an innovative 12-woman round robin singles format (four groups of three players). (source: Sony Ericsson WTA Tour)

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Serena Williams saved a match point in the deciding set to defeat sister Venus Williams for the third time in a row.

Second-seeded Serena lost the first set, then won the second, and in the third set she established a two-break lead, 4-1. Seventh-seeded Venus, defending champion at the Sony Ericsson Championships, followed with winning five of the next six games to go up 6-5 and even earn a match point. Serena fought it off, held for 6-all and won a tiebreak for a 5-7 6-4 7-6(4) victory.

As already mentioned here on Women’s Tennis Blog, Serena will finish the year ranked No.1. Serena learned that after the match with Venus, as she secured the ranking by virtue of Dinara Safina’s withdrawal who played the preceding match. (via Sony Ericsson WTA Tour)

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