World No.1 Victoria Azarenka barely broke a sweat all week at the China Open, including the Sunday's final against world No.2 Maria Sharapova, to claim the $848,000 prize and her fifth title of the season (after Sydney, Australian Open, Doha and Indian Wells). Alize Cornet won just one game against Azarenka, 6-1 6-0 in the first round, Sabine Lisicki fell 6-4 6-2 in the second, Elena Vesnina 6-3 6-3 in the third, Romina Oprandi 6-2 6-0 in the quarterfinals, ninth seed Marion Bartoli 6-4 6-2 in the semis and second seed Maria Sharapova 6-3 6-1 in the final. You can't ask for a better run to a WTA title, let alone a Premier Mandatory one.

For the amazing third time in the hardcourt finals this year, Azarenka thrashed Sharapova. In the Australian Open final she beat her 6-3 6-0, in the Indian Wells final 6-2 6-3 and today the score was alike. Truth be said, both players had a negative differential of winners to unforced errors, but Azarenka was much better with -7 compared to Sharapova's -21, which included 39 unforced errors.

Azarenka has Linz and the WTA Championships left on the schedule for 2012, while Sharapova will focus just on the WTA Championships. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

World's two highest-ranked players and top two seeds of the China Open tournament will face each other in the title match – No.1 Victoria Azarenka and No.2 Maria Sharapova. Neither has lost a set all week, actually, they didn't lose many games either, except Sharapova's tight first-round match against Simona Halep.

The first on court was Sharapova, facing home favorite Li Na in the semis. The Russian fell behind 1-3, before winning 11 of the next 12 games for a clean 6-4 6-0 score. In the other semifinal, Azarenka took on Marion Bartoli, the player who ended her 26-match winning streak in Miami. Just like in her other matches this week, the Belarusian didn't waste much time. She was tested in the first set, before storming to a 5-1 lead in the second and finishing the match on Bartoli's serve, having failed to serve it out in the previous game. Final score: 6-4 6-2. Azarenka has now surpassed Angelique Kerber in the number of match wins this season, with 61.

Azarenka is 6-4 head-to-head against Sharapova and has won their last five meetings on hardcourts. This season Azarenka leads Sharapova 3-1. Moreover, this will be their sixth meeting in the title match and in those encounters Azarenka is also leading, 4-1. (photos: © Neal Trousdale)

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.

Read more »

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)