Defending champion Maria Sharapova is through to the semifinals of the Internazionali BNL d'Italia, beating wildcard Venus Williams 6-4 6-3 in the final eight. After a closely-fought first set, the Russian second seed broke Venus' serve for a 5-4 lead, and in the following game saved two break points before taking the set. The second set Sharapova started by establishing a 2-0 lead, and even though Venus leveled at 2-all, the American didn't give much more resistance. Besides confidently holding one more service game, the rest of the set was Sharapova's and Venus even ended the match with a double fault. Sharapova's semifinal opponent will be Petra Kvitova or Angelique Kerber.

Earlier in the quarterfinals, Serena Williams was on court for just 28 minutes, as Flavia Pennetta retired with a right wrist injury while trailing 4-0. Williams' claycourt winning streak has mounted to 17 matches, and the American, who has this spring won on the green clay of Charleston and the blue clay of Madrid, confidently stated: "I've played on ice and on water. I can play on any surface."

Serena's opponent in the semifinals will be French Open champion Li Na of China, who stormed to a 6-1 4-0 lead against Dominika Cibulkova, before the Slovak recovered to take the second set to a tiebreak. Still, Li won 6-1 7-6 (4) and is now looking for her second victory over Serena in their seventh meeting. (photo courtesy of Francesca Moscatelli)

Wearing a red mini dress and black high heels, Dominika Cibulkova posed with her boyfriend Miso Navara on a tennis court for Cas.sk. The leitmotif of the Valentine's Day photo shoot was a cardboard heart. Sweet, romantic?

The 22-year-old Cibulkova talked about the beauty of her relationship with Miso, and named five reasons why she couldn’t live without the man who calls her the number one woman in his life.

Above is the most recent picture of the couple, which is currently Dominika's Facebook profile photo. Miso's profile photo is also with Dominika. Check it out below.

At the Qatar Total Open, in an all-German first-round encounter between fresh first-time WTA titlist Angelique Kerber and ninth seed Sabine Lisicki, the newer German force took charge, overcame stomach problems, came back from a set down and upset her friend Lisicki 4-6 6-4 6-1. Kerber believes they both played a great match, while Lisicki finds she hadn't committed as many unforced errors in the past ten tournaments she played. Just to mention, the Paris title rose Kerber from No.27 to No.22 in the rankings this week.

Seed No.15 Daniela Hantuchova, who just like Kerber won a WTA title over the weekend, is out of the Qatar Total Open in Doha, having wasted a one-set lead and then falling in the third-set tiebreaker to Simona Halep 3-6 6-2 7-6(4). Romania's Halep overcame a leg injury, and with an aggressive baseline game and good tiebreak clinched one of the biggest victories of her career.

Later in the day, Flavia Pennetta took out eleventh seed Dominika Cibulkova 6-3 2-6 7-5. Pennetta won two points more than Cibulkova and took the victory.

Defending champion at the tournament is Vera Zvonareva, who will after a first-round bye play Monica Niculescu in the second round. Last week at Pattaya, Zvonareva retired from her quarterfinal in the third set against Sorana Cirstea with a left hip injury. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Last month Women's Tennis Blog informed you that Dominika Cibulkova and Caroline Wozniacki were about to play the Tennis Classic 2011 exhibition in Bratislava. The event took place yesterday and our reader Marine visited it, which she has readily documented on her Tennis Notebook blog.

It was a day of relaxation for the tennis stars, especially for Wozniacki who didn't take her singles match with Cibulkova seriously and initiated the activities such as champagne drinking, dancing with cheerleaders and impersonation of WTA and ATP players. The crowd found Wozniacki's moves entertaining and the world No.1 even had a few marriage proposals. As Marine reports, Cibulkova didn't have an easy task keeping up with Wozniacki's energy. Read more »

The highest-ranked Austrian ATP player Jurgen Melzer likes mingling with top WTA players and after Russian Anastasia Myskina (who is now expecting her third child), Czech Nicole Vaidisova (now married to Radek Stepanek) and Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova (remember their famous photos from a vacation in Maldives?), the handsome Austrian is now dating Czech 28-year-old Iveta Benesova. Read more »