Petra Kvitova earned her first WTA title in six months and the tenth in her career by winning the battle against Sara Errani. Before last week's Doha, Kvitova hadn't won back-to-back matches since the 2012 US Open, but after reaching the quarterfinals at the Qatar Total Open, the Czech was victorious five matches in a row to claim the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships title.

The final had big momentum swings, but Kvitova's was the closing one and she won the match 6-2 1-6 6-1. After opening the encounter with a 6-2 1-0 lead, Kvitova lost six straight games to Errani, but in the third set she took charge again and finished the match by grabbing five consecutive games.

In the first round Kvitova routed Daniela Hantuchova 6-2 6-1, then overcame Ana Ivanovic 7-5 7-6(1) in the second round, beat third seed Agnieszka Radwanska in the quarterfinals 6-2 6-4, eighth seed Caroline Wozniacki 6-3 6-4 in the semis, and finally Errani to increase her perfect record against the Italian to 4-0. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

The fight for the prestigious Dubai title and $442,198 in prize money will feature fifth seed Sara Errani and sixth seed Petra Kvitova.

Errani got past her good friend and doubles partner Roberta Vinci, who reached the semifinals with wins over two-time Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova and two current Top 10 players, Angelique Kerber and Sam Stosur, one of whom is also a Grand Slam champion. Errani beat her fellow Italian 6-3 6-3 in a match that featured 11 breaks of serve in those 18 games. Vinci has now lost the last five singles meetings against her doubles partner.

In the other Friday's semifinal, Petra Kvitova was better than former world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki, 6-3 6-4. This is a big success for the 2011 Wimbledon champion Kvitova, who had failed to win more than two matches at any tournament this year. After comfortably taking the first set, Kvitova gave away her serve in the fifth game of the second set to trail 2-3, but broke back immediately and then again to move into the final of the mini major, as she called the Dubai Duty Free Championships.

Kvitova has won all three of her matches against Errani so far, in straight sets, and is the favorite for the title at the $2,000,000 event. (photos: © Neal Trousdale)

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)

Just a day after Victoria Azarenka, top seed at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, withdrew from the tournament, second seed Serena Williams also decided to leave before even starting her opening match, citing back pain that she said had been bothering her for a couple of weeks, and now the tournament's third seed and titleholder Agnieszka Radwanska has a considerably easier draw, especially given that she's constantly losing to Azarenka, and she's never beaten Williams in their four meetings. Read more »

A year after starting the season 26-0, Victoria Azarenka is off to a 14-0 start in 2013, but now after winning the Qatar Total Open title, the Belarusian is taking a break, withdrawing from Dubai on the account of a bone bruise in her right foot, even though she didn't show signs of injury during her title defense in Doha.

Realizing that you play five days in a row against top players, sometimes it is too much. You just try to play. And I tried, but my body says no. I cannot force (it). I cannot put myself in a position to hurt myself. That would just be stupid.

Azarenka, no longer No.1 as of yesterday, has played three tournaments this season and this is her third health issue. She pulled out of the Brisbane semifinals due to a pedicure gone wrong, in the semifinals of the Australian Open she had a controversial medical timeout for a panic attack/breathing problems and now she's having a foot injury which she's planning to have examined in the United States ahead of Indian Wells. (source: ESPN, photo: Ralf Reinecke)