Angelique Kerber defeated Ekaterina Makarova at the AEGON International 6-2 6-4 and reached her first semifinal on grass while becoming a leader in match wins in 2012. At the other tournament of the week, Kim Clijsters is reaffirming her comeback by reaching the semifinals of the Unicef Open.

Yesterday Kerber recorded her 38th match win of the year, tying world No.2 Victoria Azarenka and world No.3 Agnieszka Radwanska, but today she took the lead with 39 wins and will play her seventh semifinal of the season having Klara Zakopalova on the other side of the court.

Defending champion at the AEGON International is Marion Bartoli and she's also through to the semis where she'll face Tamira Paszek, who will be playing her first Premier-level semifinal.

Elsewhere, at the Unicef Open, after easing past Kateryna Bondarenko in the second round, Kim Clijsters defeated Francesca Schiavone 6-3 7-6(7) in the quarterfinals. Playing her first event since March, Clijsters increased her record against Schiavone to 12-0. In the previous rounds at the tournament, Schiavone came back from 5-3 down in the third set against Maria Kirilenko and against Irina-Camelia Begu she fought off eight match points. Clijsters will face qualifier Urszula Radwanska in the semis. (photos: © Neal Trousdale)

Women's Tennis Blog's contributor Omair is known for his statistical approach to tennis, but now he's summing up the claycourt season, awarding the WTA players titles based on their performance at Roland Garros 2012. Do you agree with Omair's titles? Feel free to comment!

Maria Sharapova – CLAY QUEEN

Having won Stuttgart and Rome, Sharapova was 11-1 on clay coming into the French Open, and she made it 18-1, her lone loss coming at the hands of Serena Williams on the blue clay of Madrid.

Sara Errani – CINDERELLA

Although Errani was the claycourt wins leader entering the French Open, she had never been beyond the second round of the tournament in her last four attempts, had been past the third round of a Grand Slam only once in the last eighteen majors (quarterfinals at this year's Australian Open) and was 0-28 against Top 10 players. It all changed at this year's Franch Open, she not only reached her first Grand Slam final, but in doing so recorded her first two victories over Top 10 players. Although she fell short to Sharapova in the final, she had a great run to the championship match.

Samantha Stosur – UNDERACHIEVER

Stosur's game is best suited to clay and she is a great claycourt player as is evidenced by her record at Roland Garros – she has been to the semifinals or better for three of the past four years, including this year's semifinal. She is one of the fittest athletes on the Tour at the moment, and with her game she no doubt was an underachiever. Read more »

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Will it be red hot Maria Sharapova or Serena Williams? Once clumsy on clay, Sharapova is now a definite favorite for the Roland Garros trophy. With Stuttgart and Rome titles this season, Sharapova has raised her record in clay finals to 5-0 and she's 11-0 on dirt this season. Also, four of her last five titles have come on clay. The 2002 French Open champion Serena is on a 17-match winning streak on clay, the second best clay streak this century, and even though she withdrew in the semifinals of Rome, she's expected to be healthy for Roland Garros. Just like Sharapova, Serena won two titles on clay this year, in Charleston and Madrid.

World number one Victoria Azarenka has had a stellar season, with a 35-3 win-loss record, four titles, including her first Grand Slam at the Australian Open, and two finals in eight tournaments she played in 2012. As for the clay season, she played the finals of Stuttgart and Madrid and beat three former French Open champions on the way (Svetlana Kuznetsova, Ana Ivanovic and Li Na) before losing to the hottest players of the moment, to Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. Azarenka then withdrew from Rome after comfortably winning her opener, saying that she didn't even want to enter the tournament in the first place, but was forced by the pressure of WTA rules. This will be the first time Azarenka is top seed at a Grand Slam. Read more »

Second seed and defending champion Maria Sharapova advanced to the Internazionali BNL d'Italia final with a 6-3 6-4 victory over Angelique Kerber. Her opponent in the title match will be seed number eight Li. Three of Sharapova's last five titles came on clay, while the only Grand Slam she hasn't won yet is the claycourt Roland Garros, the trophy Li lifted last year.

In both sets Sharapova broke Kerber's serve right away, and even though the twelfth-seeded German did manage to break back and keep herself in the match, Sharapova was in control throughout. The Russian's lead in winners was 27-9, while she committed one fewer unforced than her opponent. Read more »

This Monday world No.11 Angelique Kerber overtook Andrea Petkovic as the highest-ranked German player and started off the Rome tournament with a victory over Anastasia Rodionova, a hard-fought one, though. Seed No.12 Kerber worked her way back from a set down and early breaks in both the second and third set to finally defeat qualifier Rodionova 4-6 7-5 6-2.

Another high-profile German was in action today – Julia Goerges overcame qualifier Aleksandra Wozniak in three sets 6-1 6-7(1) 6-3, but after missing a match point in the second set.

The dramatic windy day on the clay of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia also featured a clash of two Grand Slam champions, even better, the French Open champions – Ana Ivanovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova. Ivanovic produced a fine performance to defeat Kuznetsova 6-4 6-3, performing 100% on the conversion of the five break points she had.

There was another French Open champion in action on the first day of Rome – No.10 seed Francesca Schiavone – but the Italian No.1 ended up as the only seeded casualty of the day, falling to Ekaterina Makarova 6-3 6-4. (via WTA Tour, photo: Ralf Reinecke)