Lindsay Davenport reached her third final in four tournaments since her comeback with a 6-4 6-3 victory over sixth seed Tamira Paszek at the ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand.

Note that this was Davenport’s 17th win out of 18 matches since her return. Impressive! And now she’s only one match away from winning her 54th career title.

In the final, Davenport will meet unseeded Aravane Rezai of France, who ended the surprise run of home wildcard Marina Erakovic 6-3 7-5. (source: Reuters, photo: Yellowballin’)

New Zealand’s Marina Erakovic staged a fantastic upset at her home tournament ASB Classic by beating top seed and last year’s finalist Vera Zvonareva.

It is a really big win for the world No.153 who won the match in the third set tie-break and in that way reached the ASB Classic semifinals. I watched the match a little bit on the internet, and Erakovic, as well as the crowd, were ecstatic, and quite shocked.

Final score: 63 26 76(5)

For more details read R.C. French’s report. He’s a New Zealander who watched the match live! (photo via The New Zealand Herald)

Austrian phenomenon Tamira Paszek defeated second seed Maria Kirilenko of Russia 6-1, 6-3, and became the first semifinalist at the 2008 ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand.

Sixth-seeded Paszek was happy with her on court performance. "I didn't miss many shots," she says, adding that she felt she had her rhythm.

Other quarterfinal matches are Vera Zvonarevia vs. Marina Erakovic (at the moment I’m writing this they’re playing the third set), Katarina Srebotnik vs. Aravane Rezai, and Lindsay Davenport vs. Sara Errani. (source: TVNZ)

The 2008 ASB Classic is in progress, and we have three excellent things to help us follow this Tier IV tournament in Auckland, New Zealand – those are the ability to watch the tournament live on the internet (for free!), great reports of R.C. French who goes to the tournament every day, and daily ASB Classic’s podcasts. Read more »

Austrian Tamira Paszek seems to be taking the ASB Classic seriously as she has already arrived in Auckland to start practicing for the New Year's Eve event.

In the past, the earliest that the players have arrived in New Zealand was two weeks before the ASB Classic, so fifth-seeded Paszek is about to break the record by about a week.

While it’s common for players to come to Australia two or three weeks prior to the first two tournaments, New Zealand had to wait a bit longer for the players to arrive. Richard Palmer, director of the ASB Classic, believes that if Paszek makes a good result at the tournament, other players will follow her example and arrive in New Zealand just as early. (source: Newstalk ZB, photo via Linkmania)