A month after winning Seoul, third seed Caroline Wozniacki went to the Kremlin Cup title by defeating Urszula Radwanska in the second round, then twice surviving a failure to serve out against fifth seed and defending champion Dominika Cibulkova in the quarterfinals, then again not serving it out in the second set of the semifinal against Sofia Arvidsson but winning in two hours and 34 minutes in three sets, and then finally beating Samantha Stosur 6-2 4-6 7-5.

At Wozniacki leading 6-2 4-3, Stosur won five straight games, including breaking the Dane to love at the start of the third set. Stosur was even leading 3-1 in the decider, but dropped her serve in the sixth game and was broken decisively in the 12th after two hours and 13 minutes.

Wozniacki has won $122,000 in prize money in her first Premier-level title since New Haven 14 months ago. It’s Wozniacki’s 20th career title and she’s the fourth active player after Serena Williams, Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova to have that many. Moreover, 13 of those titles are Premier and 7 are International. Wozniacki is now 20-11 in WTA finals, while Stosur is 3-12. (photo: sr_cranks)

Both this week's tournaments are at the semifinal stage, and while at the Premier-level Moscow we're having three of the top four seeds in the semis, the International-level Luxembourg had only the top seed in the quarterfinals and now she's out too.

Ana Ivanovic and Caroline Wozniacki, both in the shaky career periods, or in Ivanovic's case sort of an era, have made a nice progress to the big Moscow semifinals. The third-seeded Wozniacki took out defending champion Dominika Cibulkova, but only after serving for the match twice in the second set and both times getting broken at love to finally win in the third set, 6-2 6-7(1) 6-1. Wozniacki's semifinal opponent will be fellow Scandinavian Sofia Arvidsson, who had eliminated seed No.2 Marion Bartoli and now Maria Kirilenko, the only representative of Russia left in the draw, 6-3 6-3.

The other semifinal pairing is top seed Samantha Stosur vs. fourth seed Ana Ivanovic, in their first clash since 2009. Stosur beat Klara Zakopalova 6-1 6-3 in the quarterfinals, while Ivanovic beat fellow Serbian Vesna Dolonc 6-4 6-1 in their first career meeting. Read more »

At the Premier-level Kremlin Cup all the seeded players that were in action on Thursday moved into the quarterfinals in straight sets, wrapping up the second round. No.1 seed Samantha Stosur survived her first match of the tournament and tightly went past Alize Cornet 7-6(6) 7-5. Fourth seed Ana Ivanovic beat Russian qualifier Valeria Solovieva 6-1 6-4 and an interesting meeting is awaiting her with a new compatriot, Russian-born Vesna Dolonc who became Serbian in spring and has now reached her biggest career quarterfinal by winning all the games from 1-all in the first set against Simona Halep for a 6-1 6-0 victory. The encounter will be their first. Seventh seed Maria Kirilenko defeated Yaroslava Shvedova 7-5 6-4, after trailing 1-5 in the opening set.

Kremlin Cup quarterfinal matches: Samantha Stosur (1) vs. Klara Zakopalova, Ana Ivanovic (4) vs. Vesna Dolonc, Dominika Cibulkova (5) vs. Caroline Wozniacki (3) and Maria Kirilenko (7) vs. Sofia Arvidsson. Read more »

After enjoying a bye in the first round of the Kremlin Cup, Caroline Wozniacki went past Urszula Radwanska, the younger and lower ranked Radwanska sister, to advance to the quarterfinals.

The third-seeded Dane converted all three of her break chances to win the first set of the second-round encounter and in the second set she quickly established a pretty commanding lead, but needed quite a bit of time to finish the match, wasting four match points at 5-2 and closing out on the fifth match point in the following game. Final score: 6-1 6-3.

Urszula's 2012 season has seen her gradually climb up the rankings, from No.102 at the start of the year to No.29 earlier this month, while now she's No.30. In the previous round of the Kremlin Cup she took out Grand Slam champion Francesca Schiavone, who has lost six of her last seven matches. Unlike Urszula, Caroline has had a disappointing season, failing to qualify for the WTA Championships for the first time since 2008 and spinning from the top of the rankings at the end of the 2011 season to No.11.

The last month's Seoul title did end the year-long title drought, but it can't erase the overall discouraging feel of 2012. Some of the reasons for the slump are, according to Wozniacki herself, numerous obligations towards sponsors and the media: Read more »

Seed No.2 Marion Bartoli lost in the second round of the Kremlin Cup and now it's certain that Samantha Stosur, top seed in Moscow, will be the first alternate at the WTA Championships in Istanbul. To get a chance to occupy the spot of the first alternate, Bartoli needed to reach at least the final in Moscow, but that proved to be a long shot as the Frenchwoman fell to Sofia Arvidsson right after her first-round bye, 6-3 6-0.

In the match of the two 28-year-olds, the 46th-ranked Arvidsson committed no double faults, while her opponent made 12, and had the first serve percentage of 80 to her opponent's 53. Bartoli said she was tired and exhausted and the slow indoor court didn't work in her advantage, perfectly suiting Arvidsson who is now 5-2 all-time against Bartoli.

In the Kremlin Cup quarterfinals, Arvidsson will face either seventh-seeded Maria Kirilenko, one of only two Russians left in the draw which originally featured seven players from that country, or Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)