The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour celebrated Mother’s Day, which I've learned is on the second Sunday of May in the United States, as opposed to March 8th here in Serbia, with a couple of videos.

One is featuring Serena Williams, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Dinara Safina, Victoria Azarenka and Aleksandra Wozniak talking about the role of their mothers in their lives. I absolutely love Kuznetsova’s eloquent statement: "For mom, without mom I wouldn’t be here, so it’s great." This "so it's great" part is my favorite, haha.

In the other video is Jelena Jankovic with her always-present mother Snezana, who is telling us about Jelena’s childhood and how spoiled Jelena was. Of course, she’s having a lot of praise for her daughter, too. Sneki and Jeca are very cute together, and I’m happy to see Sneki healthy and active again.

World No.1 Dinara Safina claimed her first title since climbing to the top of the rankings with a 6-3 6-2 victory over fellow Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome.

Safina has won her first singles title in 2009, playing her fourth final of the season. Last week Safina and Kuznetsova faced each other in the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix final, but Kuznetsova then won 6-4 6-3. It was Kuznetsova’s first title in seven final appearances and first trophy since 2007. Oops, her curse in title matches may be back already.

The world No.8 Kuznetsova is projected to climb to No.7 in the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Rankings for the week of May 11, 2009, while Safina will remain No.1.

Winning the Internazionali BNL d’Italia, Safina has won €620,000. Runner-up Kuznetsova has earned €310,000. (photos by our reader Elisa)

Quarterfinal matches were taking place today in Rome, and most notably, top seed and world No.1 Dinara Safina survived one more three-setter, while finally-noticeable Svetlana Kuznetsova defeated two-time defending champion Jelena Jankovic.

World No.48 Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez had scored victories over Amelie Mauresmo, seed No.11 Marion Bartoli and seed No.8 Nadia Petrova prior to meeting Dinara Safina in the quarterfinals. The 26-year-old Spaniard even took the first set from Safina, and had a 3-1 lead in the second, but the master of recovery won the match 4-6 6-3 6-0.

Safina will play fourth seed Venus Williams in the semifinals. Williams advanced with her first two-setter at the tournament, beating tenth seed Agnieszka Radwanska 6-1 6-2.

Seventh-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova has been in the shadow for quite some time, but her shiny days are back as last week she won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, and now she has reached the Internazionali BNL d’Italia semifinals taking out third seed Jelena Jankovic 6-1 7-6(3). After winning the first set, the Russian came through a nervy second-set tie break to avenge her defeat in the 2007 final.

Kuznetsova’s next opponent will be sixth seed Victoria Azarenka, who beat Kaia Kanepi 7-6(5) 6-3. (photo: Tennis Channel)

Svetlana Kuznetsova, who had lost her last six finals, defeated world No.1 Dinara Safina 6-4 6-3 at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix to win her first title since August 2007.

Kuznetsova was in command in the all-Russian final and sent Safina to a third final defeat of the season, after Sydney and Australian Open. Safina had five break points, but converted none of them, while Kuznetsova the 2004 US Open champion now ranked No. 9, converted two out of four.

Safina was playing her first tournament since becoming No.1. Kuznetsova will definitely remember this victory, it’s her first title in a long time, plus, she won the white Porsche. (photo via Yahoo)

World No.1 and top seed Dinara Safina once again used her impressive comeback skills to defeat Flavia Pennetta 3-6 7-5 6-0 and reach the Stuttgart final where she will face fellow Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova.

The world No.14 Pennetta seemed to be on a good way to victory as she won the first set and was close to winning the second, too. However, when Safina leveled at 5-5 in the second set, she never looked back and won the next eight games. Pennetta showed powerful groundstrokes, but as she lost her chances she became burnt out and Safina started dominating.

Safina now has a 6-0 head-to-head record against Pennetta.

Earlier, fifth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova crushed compatriot and second seed Elena Dementieva 6-4 6-2 with surprising ease in just 67 minutes to book her place in the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix final.

In Sunday’s final Kuznetsova will be trying to win her first tournament since New Haven in 2007. Safina will be going for her first title of the season, after losing in two finals in 2009, in Sydney and at the Australian Open. (photos via Sony Ericsson WTA Tour)

Belorussian Victoria Azarenka defeated world No.8 Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia 6-3 2-6 7-5 in the Sony Ericsson Open semifinals and is now one victory away from winning her third WTA singles title, and at the same time her third WTA singles title of the season (the first two are Brisbane and Memphis).

"It's really big, because it's first final in such a big tournament for me. It's the biggest moment, I would say, in my career," said Azarenka after reaching her first Premier final on the WTA Tour.

The 2006 Sony Ericsson Open champion Kuznetsova, who won her last title in August 2007 at New Haven, was contesting her first semifinal in 2009.

The 19-year-old Azarenka, the fresh member of the Top 10, will face one of the Williams sisters in the Miami final. (source: Sony Ericsson Open, photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Eighth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova was the first to enter the semifinals of the Sony Ericsson Open by overcoming Danish 13th seed Caroline Wozniacki 6-4 6-7(5) 6-1.

The 2006 Miami titlist defeated Wozniacki in 2 hours 54 minutes and will next play the winner of the Victoria Azarenka vs. Samantha Stosur quarterfinal, set to take place later on Tuesday.

Other quarterfinalists will take the courts on Wednesday. They include Serena Williams against Li Na and Venus Williams against Iveta Benesova. (photo by our reader Jacob)

Sixth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, who has reached the final at Indian Wells for the last two years, fell in the second round to wildcard Urszula Radwanska. Top seed Dinara Safina survived a tough test before beating Tsvetana Pironkova.

Kuznetsova was overpowered by the world No.107 Radwanska 6-2 4-6 6-3, despite a comeback in the second set.

Safina saved multiple set points in the first-set tiebreak before easing through the second set and beating the Bulgarian world No.50 7-6(8) 6-2. Safina will meet seed No.28 Shuai Peng of China in the third round of the BNP Paribas Open.

Safina, ranked 2nd in the world, can replace Serena Williams atop the WTA Tour rankings by reaching the Indian Wells final, as Williams is not playing the tournament. (sources: ESPN, Reuters, photo by our reader Jacob)

Only the second day of the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships is in progress, and we have already seen many interesting results.

The latest one saw the seventh seed Svetlana Kuznetsova falling to fellow Russian Elena Vesnina, failing to win even one game in the deciding set. Final score of this second-round match was 6-4 3-6 6-0.

Vesnina had defeated China’s Li Na in the first round, in three sets, too: 1-6 6-4 6-4.

The second day of the tournament is not over yet, but ninth seed Agnieszka Radwanska and 15th seed Anna Chakvetadze said goodbye in the first round. Agnieszka lost to her sister Urszula Radwanska 6-4 6-3, while Anna lost to world No.74 Ayumi Morita 7-5 6-2. Morita is the lucky loser who entered the tournament with Israeli Shahar Peer being denied a visa for the United Arab Emirates.

No other seeds have fallen on day 2 yet, although one interesting matchup is in progress at the moment. Ana Ivanovic is playing Alisa Kleybanova, the Russian who upset herin the Australian Open third round last month.

Let’s also mention that Agnes Szavay and Maria Kirilenko lost in the first round yet again. Their defeats happened on day 1, on Sunday. (photo: vesnina-elena.com)

Serena Williams crashed the Russians' party and put an end to the possibility of a Russian full house in the Australian Open semifinals by coming back from a set down to defeat Svetlana Kuznetsova.

Eighth seed Kuznetsova was leading 7-5 5-3, but then Williams’ well-known aggression returned and she won 10 of the last 11 games of the match, earning a 5-7 7-5 6-1 victory.

Williams, the second seed, joins Olympic singles medalists Dinara Safina, Elena Dementieva and Vera Zvonareva in the final four. Her next opponent will be Dementieva, who earlier beat Carla Suarez Navarro 6-2 6-2. (photo by our reader Jacob)