Maria Sharapova was beaten by fourth seed Li Na 6-4 6-4 in the semifinals of the AEGON Classic in Birmingham.

The former Wimbledon champion, who had been looking for her third title in Birmingham, suffered six breaks of serve while Li was avenging her Roland Garros defeat.

The world No.20 Li will play Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia, who defeated Sania Mirza of India 3-6 6-0 6-3 in the other semifinal.

Sharapova will spend next week practicing at Wimbledon, which starts June 22. (photo courtesy of our reader Richard)

Since her comeback, Maria Sharapova has remained undefeated on her favorite surface and reached the semifinals of the grasscourt Birmingham event.

Sharapova won her fourth match on grass this season by defeating last year’s Birmingham runner-up Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium. The Russian, making her way back after nine months out with a shoulder injury, won 6-1 2-6 6-3.

Sharapova will next face Chinese fourth seed Li Na, whom she defeated just two weeks ago to reach the French Open quarterfinals. (photo: Stephane Martinache)

Because of bad weather, only today did Maria Sharapova finish her yesterday’s match, and she had to play another one on the same day. Fortunately, both finished victoriously for the Russian.

The former world No.1 needed only two minutes to wrap up a rain-delayed second-round match with Alexa Glatch, and win it 6-3 6-4. Next for Sharapova was seventh seed Francesca Schiavone, and she raced past her 6-1 6-3 to reach the quarterfinals of the Wimbledon warmup event.

Sharapova goes on to face Belgian world No.61 Yanina Wickmayer, who saw off 14th seed Roberta Vinci 6-1 6-4. (photo: Stephane Martinache)

Maria Sharapova was today playing her first match on grass since last year's Wimbledon, where she lost in the second round.

Sharapova is back on her beloved grass, although the claycourt season was everything but unsuccessful for her, and beat Stephanie Dubois 6-4 6-2 in the first round of the AEGON Classic in Birmingham. The Russian was victorious at that tournament in 2004, just before winning Wimbledon, her first Grand Slam title.

Sharapova, who has climbed from No.102 to No.73 in the world, will next face Alexa Glatch of the United States, who upset Flavia Pennetta at the recently-finished Roland Garros. (photo: Stephane Martinache)

Comeback player Maria Sharapova, who definitely spiced up this Roland Garros, was defeated in the quarterfinals by Slovakian seed No.20 Dominika Cibulkova 6-0 6-2. The favorite for the title, top seed Dinara Safina, advanced to the semifinals, and her next opponent will be Cibulkova.

It’s fair to say Sharapova has gone further than expected, having in mind she reached the quarterfinals with only three competitive singles matches played in nine and a half months prior to Roland Garros. On her way to the final four on her least favorite surface, Sharapova beat seed No.11 Nadia Petrova and seed No.25 Li Na.

The former world No.1 Sharapova was close to being double bageled by Cibulkova in the quarterfinals, but the Russian broke Cibulkova’s serve at 5-0, even though Cibulkova had a match point. Then Sharapova impressively won the following game, and when Cibulkova served for the match again, Sharapova gave more resistance, by saving three match points in that game. However, she was defeated on the fifth.

In the first quarterfinal of the day, top seed Dinara Safina lost her first set at the 2009 French Open to ninth seed Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, who took out defending champion Ana Ivanovic in the fourth round. However, despite opening her quarterfinal by losing the opening set in just 23 minutes, the dominant Russian won the match 1-6 6-4 6-2.

I simply have to point out the spectacular stats of Safina's first four rounds: the world No.1 won four sets at love, dropped only five games, and her average match time was just 59 minutes. (photos: Stephane Martinache)