Red clay, green clay, blue clay – it's all the same for Serena Williams, even though it's her least favorite surface. The American became the first champion on the infamous blue clay by demolishing world No.1 Victoria Azarenka in the final of the Mutua Madrid Open.

The top-seeded Azarenka finished the first set with a double fault and the match with an awkward missing of the ball and that can pretty much sum up the short Madrid final which lacked in competitiveness and rallies. In the third game of the match, trailing 0-2, Azarenka made three double faults to drop serve again and then quickly go even further down, 0-4, before winning her first game, which didn't mean much as Serena soon won the set 6-1. The second set was not a very different story, only that Azarenka won two more games. Final score: 6-1 6-3.

Serena hit 14 aces to Azarenka's zero! And Azarenka had only six winners in the entire match, compared to Williams' 26. Moreover, Williams won an astonishing 91% points on first serve, while Azarenka won 63%.

All in all, Serena stormed through the tournament to stay unbeaten in her last 13 matches on clay, losing a set only to Caroline Wozniacki in the Madrid quarterfinals. Besides Wozniacki and Azarenka, Serena also defeated Elena Vesnina, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, second seed Maria Sharapova and Lucie Hradecka en route to the Ion Tiriac trophy and $631,000 in prize money. The Mutua Madrid Open title is Serena's 41st career title! (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

In the Madrid Open quarterfinals, ninth seed Serena Williams cruised past second seed Maria Sharapova 6-1 6-3 for her sixth straight win against a Top 2 player and her seventh straight win against Sharapova. Serena’s opponent in the semifinals will be Lucie Hradecka, whose dream run continued when after third seed Petra Kvitova and Ekaterina Makarova she upset fifth seed Samantha Stosur 7-6(8) 7-6(6), hitting 19 aces in a match that had no breaks in regular games, as Hradecka saved four of four break points and Stosur one of one.

Top seed Victoria Azarenka put her dissatisfaction with the slippery blue clay aside and found a way to beat Li Na despite losing the first set in which the Chinese played "unbelievable", as Azarenka said. Final score 3-6 6-3 6-3. Azarenka’s opponent in the semis will be fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska who beat Varvara Lepchenko 6-4 6-4. Infamously, Azarenka and Radwanska have played each other five times this year (and it's only May!), and each time Azarenka won. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Third seed Petra Kvitova’s Madrid Open title defense was stopped already in the second round and the responsible is qualifier Lucie Hradecka, Kvitova’s good friend and countrywoman, who won the match 6-4 6-3 to score her first Top 10 victory.

Even though officially this is the first time that Hradecka beats Kvitova, Hradecka revealed that she had defeated her before at the end of last year in some club matches, while they’ve also played a lot of sparring games for Fed Cup.

The world No.105 Hradecka’s plan to concentrate on her serve worked well, and even though she had 4% less points won on first serve, in the department of points won on second serve she was much better than Kvitova – 54% to Kvitova’s 25%. In addition, she was much more successful in conversion of break points, taking Kvitova’s serve a total of five times.

Hradecka, whose three of four WTA runner-up finishes came on clay, will play Ekaterina Makarova in the third round, after the Russian upset compatriot Maria Kirilenko 6-4 6-4.

Also in the second round, fourth seed and new world No.3 Agnieszka Radwanska ended Sara Errani’s 16-match claycourt winning streak quickly, 6-0 6-1. Radwanska will next face Roberta Vinci who also didn’t waste time in the second round, eliminating Yanina Wickmayer 6-1 6-2.

In the third round, top seed Victoria Azarenka beat seed No.13 Ana Ivanovic 6-4 6-4, eighth seed Li Na conquered seed No.12 Angelique Kerber 7-5 6-4, and fifth seed Samantha Stosur won over Petka Cetkovska 6-3 6-2. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Top two seeds at the Mutua Madrid Open Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova both advanced to the third round of the tournament where they will face Ana Ivanovic and Lucie Safarova respectively.

The second-seeded Sharapova was the first to go through, beating Klara Zakopalova 6-4 6-3. Sharapova opened the match by breaking Zakopalova to love and then working her way to winning the set from a 4-1 lead. In the second set Sharapova built a 5-2 lead, but serving for the match she lost her serve. She won the match, however, breaking Zakopalova to love. In the third round Sharapova will play Lucie Safarova, who defeated Carla Suarez Navarro 6-3 6-4.

Top seed Azarenka overcame Andrea Hlavackova 6-3 7-6(2) and will play Ana Ivanovic in the third round. Ivanovic advanced with a 7-5 6-1 victory over Nadia Petrova, serving seven aces and scoring 77% on first serve. (via Sharapova's official website, photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Top seed Victoria Azarenka kicked off her Mutua Madrid Open campaign with a 7-6(5) 6-4 victory over claycourt specialist Svetlana Kuznetsova who entered the first round match with a 4-2 head-to-head record against the world No.1. Kuznetsova is a very intimidating opponent for an opener, but Azarenka, defeated only two times this season, took the first set in a tiebreak, then the players exchanged breaks in the beginning of the second set, and in the end Azarenka prevented another tiebreak by breaking Kuznetsova for the victory.

Fresh off her high-profile win on Stuttgart clay, second seed Maria Sharapova needed an hour and a minute to win her first encounter with Irina-Camelia Begu 6-0 6-3. It took Sharapova just 21 minutes to win the first set, while in the closer second set a break in the sixth game was enough for her to ensure victory.

Sixth seed Caroline Wozniacki is also through, but after more than three hours of battling against Ksenia Pervak. Final score: 7-6(7) 3-6 6-4. (photo: sr_cranks)