Just as we said that the Dubai draw opened up for titleholder Agnieszka Radwanska with withdrawals of Victoria Azarenka and Serena Williams, the Pole went out to Petra Kvitova 6-2 6-4 in the quarterfinals, who has now recorded her first Top 5 win since her Wimbledon-winning 2011 season. Despite producing 38 unforced errors to 37 winners, Kvitova was better than Radwanska, whose numbers were modest six winners to five unforced errors. In the semifinals, the sixth-seeded Kvitova will play eighth seed Caroline Wozniacki, who battled past Marion Bartoli 4-6 6-1 6-4. The semifinal will be a clash of Top 2 players from the WTA rankings at the end of 2011.

The other Dubai semifinal will feature members of the top-ranked doubles pairing, Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci. The fifth-seeded Errani, who is 4-2 all-time against Vinci in singles, recovered from suffering a second-set bagel to defeat Nadia Petrova 6-4 0-6 6-3, while Vinci is enjoying one of the best weeks of her career, having recorded two straight Top 10 victories: against world No.6 Angelique Kerber on Wednesday and today against world No.9 Samantha Stosur 6-2 6-4. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

The Qatar Airways Tournament of Champions Sofia is, in my opinion, the anti-climax of the women's tennis season, as the finale for the WTA's International Series following the much more prestigious WTA Championships, and what makes it even more odd is that the closing matches will coincide with the Fed Cup World Group final. To make things worse, Ana Ivanovic cannot defend her title in Sofia because she is playing for her country of Serbia in the Fed Cup against the Czech Republic. But let's accept the situation we have and see what happened on Day one of the Tournament of Champions, which has relocated from Bali to Sofia for the first time this year.

Top seed Caroline Wozniacki cruised to a 6-2 6-2 victory over Hsieh Su-Wei, converting all five of her break opportunities. Wozniacki is also in action tomorrow, in the third match of the day, and her Serdika Group opponent is Roberta Vinci, who has actually won their one and only previous career meeting. Just like Wozniacki, Vinci needed just over an hour to see off her opponent, Daniela Hantuchova, 6-1 6-2.

Home star Tsvetana Pironkova is yet to win a WTA title and she entered the tournament by virtue of a wildcard, but she justified the chance she has been given by winning a 2-6 6-4 7-6(4) marathon against Zheng Jie, to whom she had lost on both the previous occasions. The Bulgarian is in the Sredets Group and after the most emotional win of her career, which came after a 6-2 4-4 deficit, she will face Maria Kirilenko, also a wildcard, in the second match on Wednesday. Tomorrow's action will open the match between Zheng Jie and Nadia Petrova. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

While the action is still heating up in Moscow, where top seeds are enjoying their first-round byes, the BGL BNP Paribas Luxembourg Open is in full swing.

Top seed and 2010 Luxembourg champion Roberta Vinci came through with a bizarre victory over Olga Govortsova, bageling the Belarusian in the first and third sets, but getting crushed in between. In the two sets Vinci won, Govortsova won six and nine points on her serve, while in the second set of the match Govortsova converted all three of her break opportunities and we got the score 6-0 2-6 6-0. Vinci is world No.15 in singles, while in doubles she's a fresh No.1, as of this week.

Second seed Julia Goerges stormed past Silvia Soler-Espinosa 6-2 6-1, hitting nine aces and losing just nine points in eight service games. It's a perfect revenge for Goerges, who has recently suffered an agonizing 1-6 7-6(5) 6-2 loss to the Spaniard in Seoul, after being a set and a break up. Read more »

When doctors assured her that her right knee injury wouldn't be aggravated by further play, Caroline Wozniacki decided to enter her semifinal against Maria Kirilenko and try to crawl to her fifth-straight New Haven title. However, the 20-0 winning streak was over after the first set, when the Dane, trailing 5-7, realized she had to retire due to the injury she picked up in the second set of her quarterfinal against Dominika Cibulkova.

Wozniacki, confident of her health for the upcoming US Open, tweeted:

Some treatment and ice and I should be all good for the Open next week!

Despite the unlucky circumstances, the New Haven Open will always remain a special tournament for Wozniacki. Plus, last year in New Haven she kissed her boyfriend Rory McIlory in front of the world for the first time.

In the title match, Kirilenko will face Petra Kvitova and will try to repeat the recent Olympic performance, where she beat the Czech 7-6(3) 6-3 in the quarterfinals.

Elsewhere, at the Texas Tennis Open, Roberta Vinci defeated Jelena Jankovic 7-5 6-3 in the final and earned her seventh career title. Serving at 5-4 30-15 in the first set, there was a close call which didn't go Jankovic's way and, as things often end up with JJ, she lost her nerve and eventually the entire match. En route to the $220,000 title, before Jankovic the third-seeded Vinci double bageled Bojana Jovanovski in the semis, while against Chanelle Scheepers, Polona Hercog and Hsieh Su-Wei she also didn't drop a set. (photos: sr_cranks, © Neal Trousdale)

Now that the WTA Championships in Istanbul have come to a close, let's shift our attention to the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions which is about to start on November 3 in Bali. The Tour actually announced the draw of the really-season-ending tournament on the day the much more important season-ending tournament commenced (how awkward is that?), but I decided to postpone the Bali talk until Istanbul finishes.

You know that in order to qualify for the event in exotic Bali you have to win an International-level WTA tournament in the ongoing season and not qualify for the WTA Championships in Istanbul which features the best eight singles players of the year. To make things even more complicated, Marion Bartoli did not qualify for Istanbul and was therefore eligible to play Bali, but as the first alternate in Istanbul she did eventually play the event because of Maria Sharapova's withdrawal. Nevertheless, Bartoli is still qualified to play Bali. Pretty messed up. But hey, let's see who's in. Read more »