Vera Zvonareva must be devastated after her final round-robin match in the Red Group of the TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships. The Russian won the first set against Agnieszka Radwanska 6-1 and after losing the second with 20 unforced errors committed (that's five games!) and starting the third by dropping serve, she rebroke her opponent and established a 3-1 lead and 5-3 lead. However, the decider consisted of Radwanska's series of games and Zvonareva's series of games and after ten games and three match points wasted by Zvonareva they were 5-all. Then Zvonareva lost her serve again and in the final game Radwanska took her opportunity and won the match 1-6 6-2 7-5.

Zvonareva lost her opening match of the tournament to mighty Petra Kvitova 6-2 6-4, but the following day defeated world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki 6-2 4-6 6-3. As for Radwanska, she lost her first match to Caroline Wozniacki, and tomorrow she will face Petra Kvitova. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

In front of the full stands at the WTA Championships in Istanbul, Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska looked to be on a good way to continue her amazing fall season in the Red Group match against world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki, especially after fending off set points in the first set to level at 5-5 and winning the following game on Wozniacki's serve to love before taking the set 7-5.

The Pole started the second set with a break, but Wozniacki broke back, and even though Radwanska took her opponent's serve once again for a 2-1 lead in the second set, Wozniacki won four games in a row and forced the decider in which she was in control until 4-2. Radwanska then staged a comeback for 4-all, but the Polish-speaking Dane eventually won the high-quality match 5-7 6-2 6-4. Read more »

The 2011 TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships in Istanbul start tomorrow, not affected by the devastating earthquake that killed around 270 people in Turkey. Players and the Tour expressed their condolences, but their job is calling them to focus on the big task ahead.

Since only the most successful eight players of the season are in the competition, it is not entirely reasonable to talk about the toughness of the draw, but we can always speculate: is the world No.1 the favorite, or the most-established players, or the late season bloomers, or someone else? Let’s analyze the two round-robin groups.

RED GROUP: Caroline Wozniacki, Petra Kvitova, Vera Zvonareva, Agnieszka Radwanska

The tournament will start with the clash between Kvitova and Zvonareva. Kvitova is making her debut at the WTA Championships, but at this year’s Wimbledon she showed she doesn’t shy away at grand stages. Also, the Czech is fresh off a WTA title in Linz.

Another first-time qualifier, Agnieszka Radwanska, is also in action on the first day, against world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki. Radwanska is the hottest player this fall, having won 11 of her last 12 matches, including Premier-level titles in Tokyo and Beijing. Zvonareva was runner-up in Tokyo, while Wozniacki had the worst results of the group this fall, losing in the third round of Tokyo and the quarterfinals of Beijing.

To give you a deeper insight into the mutual relationships of the players, here are their head-to-head statistics, with this year's records in brackets. Read more »

Marion Bartoli needed three things to take the last spot in the season-ending WTA Championships: to win Osaka – check!, to have Agnieszka Radwanska lose before the quarterfinals in Moscow – check!, to win the Moscow title – well, it would have been too good to be true. Bartoli withdrew from her quarterfinal against Elena Vesnina citing viral infection, insuring Radwanska's qualification for Istanbul. Read more »

World No.8 Agnieszka Radwanska is the hot player of this period, sort of a late-season bloomer, having won two big tournaments of Tokyo and Beijing in back-to-back weeks of the end of September and beginning of October. In her third successive event, the Kremlin Cup in Moscow, the Pole lost in the second round to Lucie Safarova 6-4 4-6 6-4 and opened the door for Bartoli to take the last spot in the draw of the WTA Championships in Istanbul. All Radwanska can do now is sit and wait, while the victory over Safarova would have made her a certain qualifier.

The 27th-ranked Lucie Safarova is a talented player with great prospects, but her inconsistency prevents her from becoming an always-present big name in tennis. On her second match point Safarova earned her fourth victory over Radwanska in their five meetings.  Read more »