Last week at Montreal Li Na lost a tough three-setter to Petra Kvitova in the final, but this week Li made one crucial additional step and went all the way to the Premier-level Western & Southern Open title, lifting the winner's trophy for the first time since her last year’s French Open triumph, after failing in three finals this season. Could the help of new coach Carlos Rodriguez already be showing results?

Li’s victim in the final was Angelique Kerber, nevertheless, the German has plenty of reasons to celebrate, as last year this time she was playing the qualifying for the International-level Dallas as world No.107, while the Cincinnati result has brought her to No.6 in the world rankings.

In the Sunday’s final, Li found herself 6-1 3-1 down, but in the 24-point eighth game of the second set, after wasting seven break points, Li finally fought her way into turning the match around and from then on she was writing the destiny of the match.

En route to the $385,000 trophy, the ninth-seeded Li defeated Sorana Cirstea in the second round, Johanna Larsson in the third, top seed Agnieszka Radwanska in the quarterfinals, Venus Williams in the semifinals, and eventually fifth seed Angelique Kerber, who made the biggest upset of the tournament by eliminating Serena Williams in the final eight round. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Li Na advanced to the Western & Southern Open final by beating an injury-affected Venus Williams 7-5 3-6 6-1, while Angelique Kerber, who eliminated hot Serena Williams in the quarters, continued to progress, and after ending Serena's 19-0 winning streak, she ended Petra Kvitova's 8-0 stretch with a 6-1 2-6 6-4 victory.

Unfortunately, Venus was not fully fit for the match, as she started feeling back pain shortly before the encounter:

Just in my warmup it was bothering me. I was like 'Oh, no'. I tried to fix it between the warmup and the match, but it didn't work.

Venus piled up five double faults in the first set, including one on a break point to go 3-2 down. She did crawl back to level at 5-5, but Li came out on top in the next two games. In the second set, Venus won five straight games to take the match to the decider, but then rapidly went down in the third set. Venus' serve was limited throughout the match, while in the third set her second serve fell to 63 mph. Read more »

Petra Kvitova’s breakthrough 2011 season included six titles, while this year had seen a drought, without even a WTA final or Top 10 wins, up until now. In the final of the $2,168,400 Rogers Cup, Kvitova edged Li Na 7-5 2-6 6-3, while earlier in the tournament she recorded wins over world No.10 Marion Bartoli in the third round and world No.8 Caroline Wozniacki in the semis.

The first set of the final lasted more than an hour and Kvitova needed five set points to win it, while in the second set seed No.10 Li went on a roll, winning 16 points in a row for a 4-0 lead and soon after 6-2. After the mid-match slump, the fifth-seeded Kvitova steadily went through the third set, and one break of Li’s serve ensured her advantage.

Kvitova now has eight titles to her name: Hobart (2009), WTA Championships, Linz, Wimbledon, Madrid, Paris, Brisbane (2011) and Montreal (2012). Li has fallen to 0-3 in finals this season, while her all-time record is 5-8. They have both climbed in the rankings: Kvitova from No.6 to No.5, and Li from No.11 to No.9. (source: WTA Tour, photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Li Na and Petra Kvitova both won their first and only Grand Slam titles in 2011 and both are still without titles this season. However, that will change in Montreal today, when one of the two will lift the Rogers Cup winner's trophy. They both advanced to the final after losing the first set of their semifinal matches.

Li rallied from 5-1 down in the third set to beat Lucie Safarova 3-6 6-3 7-5, who will finally crack the Top 20. In the other semifinal, Kvitova comfortably outplayed Caroline Wozniacki in the second and third sets, even though in the first set she could not put up a challenge to Wozniacki's only one unforced error. Final score: 3-6 6-2 6-3.

Who will finally crown 2012, Li or Kvitova? Li leads Kvitova in head-to-head 2-1. Kvitova won their first encounter handily, while the other two Li won in three sets. Their last meeting was this year on the Sydney hardcourt, and Li won 1-6 7-5 6-2 after trailing 6-1 3-1. (photos: sr_cranks, Ralf Reinecke)

In a packed Saturday schedule featuring most of the eight third-round matches and all the four quarterfinals, we got our Rogers Cup semifinal pairs: Petra Kvitova [5] vs. Caroline Wozniacki [7] and Lucie Safarova [16] vs. Li Na [10].

Petra Kvitova was one of the lucky ones who completed her third round on time, on Friday, earning her first Top 10 win of the season by beating Marion Bartoli 6-1 6-1. On Saturday she advanced to the semis with a 6-3 6-2 victory over Tamira Paszek.

Lucie Safarova was the other lucky player who didn't have to play two matches in on day. After eliminating Sam Stosur on Friday 7-6(9) 7-6(5), the tricky Czech went further on Saturday with a 6-2 6-2 victory over Roberta Vinci, who had upset sixth seed Angelique Kerber earlier in the day.

After a two-hour and 30-minute three-setter against Varvara Lepchenko in the third round, Caroline Wozniacki took out Aleksandra Wozniak 6-4 6-4, the first Canadian woman in 20 years to reach the quarterfinals of the Rogers Cup. Wozniak was a wildcard at the tournament and she defeated big names such as Daniela Hantuchova and Jelena Jankovic early on.

Li Na ended Agnieszka Radwanska's hopes of claiming the top ranking by crushing her 6-2 6-1 in the quarterfinals. Radwanska had to go all the way to the title in order to become No.1, but one precodition had already been met – Victoria Azarenka's retirement with a knee injury before the quarterfinal stage. (photo: Moo's Tennis Blog)

Carlos Rodriguez, who we are identifying with the now retired seven-time Grand Slam champion Justine Henin, will start to coach Li Na on a trial basis as of August 16 and according to the current plans their cooperation will last until the end of the season. Rodriguez will travel full-time with the 30-year-old Chinese.

For the most part of Li's career, her husband Jiang Shan was coaching her. Last year Michael Mortensen led her to the French Open title, but they stopped working together just a few months later, in September.

At the ongoing Olympics, Li lost in the first round to Daniela Hantuchova 6-2 3-6 6-3. (source: Tennis.com, photo: chascow)

Omair is known for his statistical contributions to Women's Tennis Blog, but as of Roland Garros he started doing post-Grand Slam awards, giving WTA players awards they deserved on the account of their performance. You will see how the tables are turning all the time – within just a month Serena improved from the Biggest Disappointment to Grass Empress, while Maria Sharapova downgraded from the Clay Queen to the Biggest Disappointment.

Serena Williams – GRASS EMPRESS

Serena Williams was coming off a first-round defeat at Roland Garros, her first ever first-round exit at Grand Slam, but she rebounded beautifully, reminding us that she still is the player to beat on grass. The American defeated three of the Top 4 players on her way to the Wimbledon 2012 title - Petra Kvitova in the quarterfinals (world No.4 and defending champion), Victoria Azarenka in the semis (world No.2 and reigning Australian Open champion) and Agnieszka Radwanska in the final (world No.3). To top that off, Serena went on to win the doubles title as well, with sister Venus Williams.

Agnieszka Radwanska – FINESSE QUEEN

In today's game of power and big hitters, in making the Wimbledon final Radwanska showed us with her crafty play and her court sense that there still is room for finesse players. She did what neither Petra Kvitova, nor Victoria Azarenka managed to do, i.e. take a set off Serena Williams. Before Wimbledon, Radwanska was the only member of the Top 15 never to have made a Grand Slam semifinal, but she went one step better at Wimbledon making the final and falling in three sets to one of the best grass-court players ever. Read more »

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 »