At the Internazionali BNL d’Italia, Romanian world No.64 Simona Halep is scoring huge victories one after the other and she’s s now through to the biggest semifinal of her career where the concrete wall of Serena Williams is likely to end her dream run. However, we have to mention that their last and only meeting of two years ago, even though on grass, was a tough three-setter, won by Williams 3-6 6-2 6-1.

After going through qualifying and beating former world No.5 Daniela Hantuchova to enter the main draw, Halep dispatched two-time Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova in the first round, fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska in the second, seed No.13 Roberta Vinci in the third and today she triumphed over former world No.1 Jelena Jankovic after coming from the brink of defeat in the third set, always catching up with Jankovic’s leads, and saving two match points to eventually win 4-6 6-0 7-5. Halep’s semifinal opponent, reigning No.1 Serena, eased past Carla Suarez Navarro 6-2 6-0 and recorded the best winning streak of her career with 22 successive matches.

As for the other semifinal, seventh seed Sara Errani received a walkover when two-time defending champion Maria Sharapova withdrew with a viral illness. Still, she stayed at the tournament long enough to have the opportunity to wish her recently-publicly-confirmed boyfriend a happy 21st birthday (it was after her Thursday's third-round win over Sloane Stephens). Errani's semifinal obstacle will be third seed Victoria Azarenka, who defeated ninth Samantha Stosur 6-4 1-6 6-3 in the last quarterfinal. (photos by Francesca Moscatelli, Beyond the Baseline)

Serena Williams seems to be too intimidating for Maria Sharapova, who despite her grandeur can't seem to stand up against the American, not having beaten her since 2004, the period which now includes 13 losses after Serena's today's 6-1 6-4 straightforward victory in the final of the Mutua Madrid Open. It's actually Sharapova's first loss in eight claycourt finals, while Serena was, as strange as it may seem, playing her first final on red clay since the 2002 French Open.

The top-seeded Williams raced through the first four games, then Sharapova somehow managed to hold her serve in a game that lasted about as long as the sum of the first four, but her opponent quickly closed the deal, finishing the set in just 32 minutes. The seed No.2 Sharapova offered resistance in the second set, breaking Serena's serve in the opening game and holding her own for a 2-0 lead, but she gave away that advantage by allowing her serve to be broken to love by double faulting on 0-40 in the sixth game of the set. In the tenth game Serena again broke Sharapova to love and won the match and 643,000 EUR in prize money. Read more »

We're having Top 2 WTA players in the final of the Mutua Madrid Open and the No.1 ranking is on the line – if Maria Sharapova wins, she will take the prestigious position from Serena Williams. Moreover, Sharapova is playing the 50th final of her career, in the previous 49 her record was 29-20, while Serena is looking for her 50th title in her 66th final.

A day after surviving Anabel Medina Garrigues in the quarterfinals, Serena won a tight 7-5 6-2 two-setter against Sara Errani, who was twice a break up in the first set, and will now try to become the tenth player in history to win 50 WTA titles, and the only active player to do so. In the following semifinal, Sharapova secured a 6-4 6-3 victory over Ana Ivanovic by winning a close first set and overcoming Ivanovic's initial 2-0 lead in the second set. It's not just any win for the Russian, it's her 500th career win and only seven other active players have achieved the feat, including of course Serena Williams, who leads Sharapova 12-2 in the head-to-head stats, not having lost to her since 2004. (photos: © Neal Trousdale)

Top seed and defending champion Serena Williams recovered from a second-set bagel against clay veteran Anabel Medina Garrigues in the quarterfinals of the Mutua Madrid Open, only her seventh career loss of a set at love, and in the third set she rebounded from 2-4 and later from two points from defeat at 4-5 15-30 to win 6-3 0-6 7-5. Williams' opponent in the semis will be seventh seed and claycourt expert Sara Errani, who beat Ekaterina Makarova 6-4 6-3. Never in their four previous meetings had Errani defeated Williams.

Second seed Maria Sharapova is also through to the semifinals, with a 6-2 6-4 victory over Kaia Kanepi, but if she wants to get the number one ranking she'll have to hang in there and see Serena leave one round earlier than her. Seed No.16 Ana Ivanovic was the last to move into the final four, taking out sixth seed Angelique Kerber 6-3 6-1 in a match that lasted just 57 minutes, thus reinforcing her recent 7-5 7-5 win over the higher ranked German in the Fed Cup. The semifinal of Sharapova and Ivanovic will be a rematch of the last month's indoor clay meeting in the Stuttgart final eight, when Ivanovic lost a three-set marathon and Sharapova went all the way to the title and the Porsche. Sharapova has won the last five matches against Ivanovic, dating back to 2007. (photos: © Neal Trousdale)

The speculations about the love story between WTA world No.2 Maria Sharapova and ATP world No.28 Grigor Dimitrov started in the end of November 2012 when the Russian beauty was shopping in Milan and her Bulgarian colleague appeared in the footage of the stroll through the fashion city, but now, five months later, the couple finally decided to come out and confirm their relationship publicly by kissing and hugging in the streets of Madrid on Wednesday night, which of course the paparazzi diligently recorded.

The confirmation of the love match between Sharapova and Dimitrov comes about a year after Sharapova's end of engagement to basketball player Sasha Vujacic, whose fiancée she became in October 2010, while the split that happened in late spring was confirmed in the end of August 2012. Read more »