On Sunday night, the official draw ceremony took place at the $4.9-million WTA Championships in Istanbul, dividing the eight players into two round-robin groups. Serena Williams is the only multiple champion at the year-end finale and is 35-5 against the rest of the field combined (9-1 this season), while Sara Errani is 4-23 and is the only one with a negative head-to-head record against all the three players in her group. Let's have a closer look at the draw.

RED GROUP: (1) Victoria Azarenka, (3) Serena Williams, (5) Angelique Kerber, (8) Li Na

World No.1 Victoria Azarenka is a leader in match wins this season with 67, she's also a title leader with six (tied with Serena Williams), and this fall she's been 13-0 in matches and 26-0 in sets. Serena is fifth in the list of match wins this season with 53, even though inactive this fall, and has a stunning 10-1 head-to-head record against Azarenka. Moreover, two Grand Slams and the Olympics are among Serena's six 2012 titles and three of the six she won without losing a set.  Read more »

When you’re on top of the game and you’re the biggest tennis star in your country, you can expect sponsors to chase after you and that’s what world No.4 and Polish No.1 Agnieszka Radwanska has been enjoying. The fact that she doesn’t like cooking didn’t prevent a house appliances company from wanting her to endorse their products. From the Beijing tournament Aga flew to Warsaw to launch the campaign for touch-screen ovens as the face of the Smart Style campaign by Amica.

Cooking has never been my passion, but I appreciate the time savings, because intelligent equipment in the kitchen will definitely be useful to me.

Radwanska, whom the Polish edition of Forbes named the biggest showbiz star, also has major contracts with the Lotto sports clothes and Lexus cars. Moreover, the 23-year-old Pole is sure to cash in substantial amounts in the coming period. The world No.3 in match wins this year has one more tournament left in 2012, but a $4,900,000 one, the TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships in Istanbul, where even if she doesn't win a single match she will earn $110,000.

Top seed Victoria Azarenka was the first to advance to the China Open semifinals, ending the impressive week of world No.69 Romina Oprandi, who took out Urszula Radwanska, Camila Giorgi and seed No.11 Ana Ivanovic en route to the quarters. It took Azarenka just 55 minutes to win 6-2 6-0, converting all six of her break points. Azarenka has been  in control all week, she has not lost a set yet and only against Sabine Lisicki she had a less straightforward match, but was never troubled.

In the second quarterfinal of the day, surprisingly, Maria Sharapova lost no games to Angelique Kerber, leader in match wins this season, and to add to the shock factor, Kerber retired trailing 6-0 3-0, even though there was no apparent sign of injury or illness. In the first set, Kerber hit 8 winners and 5 unforced errors and yet she was bageled. Thanks to Chris Skelton's amazing stats on Twitter, we learn that since leading Li Na 6-1 3-1 in Cincinnati, Kerber has lost 32 of her last 35 games against opponents with single-digit rankings.

Li Na secured the eighth and final berth at the WTA Championships by defeating defending champion Agnieszka Radwanska 6-4 6-2 and setting up a China Open semifinal meeting with Sharapova. Azarenka's next opponent will be the winner of the match between Marion Bartoli and Carla Suarez Navarro. (photos: sr_cranks)

Now we know all the quarterfinalists of the 4,828,050 China Open. The Marion Bartoli vs. Carla Suarez Navarro quarterfinal was determined yesterday, while after today's third-round matches we know the six remaining members of the final eight: Maria Sharapova vs. Angelique Kerber, Victoria Azarenka vs. Romina Oprandi and Agnieszka Radwanska vs. Li Na.

Second seed Maria Sharapova was the first to advance on Thursday, with an easy 6-0 6-2 victory over Polona Hercog in their first meeting. In other news, on the side of her tennis career, Sharapova is working on spreading her Sugarpova candy products outside the US. Her next destination will be Australia, and what better timing for the launch than ahead of the Australian Open.

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Today at the China Open we had action in the second and third round. Second seed Maria Sharapova was successful in the second round, cruising past Sorana Cirstea 6-2 6-2, and will next face Polona Hercog, who climbed back from a 5-1 deficit in the third set against Ekaterina Makarova. As for the battles for the quarterfinal spot, defending champion Agnieszka Radwanska, seeded third, and seed No.9 Marion Bartoli came through, while the top Serbian sisters both went out in straight sets.

Agnieszka Radwanska needed three sets and overcame six drops of serve to get past qualifier Lourdes Dominguez Lino 2-6 6-1 6-4 and reach the quarterfinals where she will face a Chinese player – either Li Na or Peng Shuai.

For the second week in a row at a Premier-level event, Marion Bartoli defeats Julia Goerges. In the previous round, Goerges scored a great win against Sam Stosur, but when facing Bartoli she again lost, this time 6-3 7-6(2).

The match between seed No.11 Ana Ivanovic and Romina Oprandi was steady until 3-3 in the first set, but the former world No.1 lost her service game then and slowly but surely she saw herself losing, piling up unforced errors and bad serves. Jelena Jankovic put up a bigger challenge to her opponent, Carla Suarez Navarro, but she wasted a 5-2 lead in the first set and held no service games in the second set (she won just 25% of points on her serve) to lose 7-5 6-4.

So far only one China Open quarterfinal pair is determined: Marion Bartoli vs. Carla Suarez Navarro. The rest will be known after Thursday's matches. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)