Last week’s Linz final kept Dominika Cibulkova’s five-year long career in the main draws of WTA tournaments dry of WTA titles after three finals, but just a week later the Slovakian changed that at the Premier-level Kremlin Cup. In her last three matches of the tournament, the world No.20 Cibulkova defeated players against whom she had negative head-to-head records – top seed Vera Zvonareva, Elena Vesnina and Kaia Kanepi. Now only Peng Shuai is a Top 20 player without a title to her name.

This is the best feeling I've ever had. It's the best day for me.

As seed No.8 Cibulkova was favorite on paper, but her opponent entered the final with a 2-0 record against her and with victories over two Grand Slam champions in the earlier matches – over Francesca Schiavone and Svetlana Kuznetsova. Also, the 43rd-ranked Kanepi might have had less pressure, having added a title to her biography (last year in Palermo).

Kanepi was in charge at the start, winning the first set 6-3. The Estonian kept her serve throughout the second set and even had the victory at her grasp, but a bit of luck helped Cibulkova force a tiebreak, which she won 7-1. A string of breaks followed from 3-3 in the third set, and the 22-year-old Cibulkova was the first to hold her serve to win the match 3-6 7-6(1) 7-5 and $118,500 after two hours and 36 minutes. (photo via Kremlin Cup)

Marion Bartoli needed three things to take the last spot in the season-ending WTA Championships: to win Osaka – check!, to have Agnieszka Radwanska lose before the quarterfinals in Moscow – check!, to win the Moscow title – well, it would have been too good to be true. Bartoli withdrew from her quarterfinal against Elena Vesnina citing viral infection, insuring Radwanska's qualification for Istanbul.

After a bye in the first round, Bartoli defeated Ksenia Pervak 6-1 6-1, but already after the victory she felt she needed a break.

It has been a very long season and I really tried to play till the very end but that was it for me.

The eight-women field for the WTA Championships is now complete: Caroline Wozniacki, Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka, Petra Kvitova, Vera Zvonareva, Samantha Stosur, Li Na and last entrant Agnieszka Radwanska. (photos: © Neal Trousdale)

World No.8 Agnieszka Radwanska is the hot player of this period, sort of a late-season bloomer, having won two big tournaments of Tokyo and Beijing in back-to-back weeks of the end of September and beginning of October. In her third successive event, the Kremlin Cup in Moscow, the Pole lost in the second round to Lucie Safarova 6-4 4-6 6-4 and opened the door for Bartoli to take the last spot in the draw of the WTA Championships in Istanbul. All Radwanska can do now is sit and wait, while the victory over Safarova would have made her a certain qualifier.

The 27th-ranked Lucie Safarova is a talented player with great prospects, but her inconsistency prevents her from becoming an always-present big name in tennis. On her second match point Safarova earned her fourth victory over Radwanska in their five meetings. 

Radwanska used to have the edge in contention for the final spot in the WTA Championships draw, but Bartoli kept her hopes alive by winning last week's HP Open, losing just 21 games in five matches. Now that Radwanska lost her opener, if Bartoli wins the Kremlin Cup she will qualify for Istanbul. In the Race to the WTA Championships, Radwanska currently has 330 points more than Bartoli. The Kremlin Cup winner receives 470 points, runner-up gets 320.

Bartoli's first opponent at the tournament is world No.38 Ksenia Pervak. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

The tennis season is over for Jelena Jankovic as she lost to world No.175 Ekaterina Ivanova in the first round of the Premier-level Kremlin Cup in Moscow, the tournament she won in her golden 2008.

There are only two tournaments left this season, for both of which players qualify by their season results, and the 13th-ranked Jankovic will play neither of them, finishing the year without WTA titles. Last year Jankovic qualified for the WTA Championships, but lost all three of her matches.

The 6-4 1-6 6-4 victory over Jankovic in the first round of Moscow is qualifier Ivanova's first Top 50 victory and only her second win in a WTA main draw this year. The 23-year-old will next play the winner of the Alla Kudryavtseva vs. Elena Vesnina encounter. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

The prize of our latest contest is now even more relevant as one of the winners will get the signed photo of the new Kremlin Cup champion Victoria Azarenka. The Belarusian world No.10 defeated Andrea Petkovic in three sets in her opening round of the Kremlin Cup in Moscow, which qualified her for the Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha, but she didn’t stop there and went all the way to the title.

Apart from the first round match, Azarenka’s route to the Premier-level Moscow title included only straight-set victories. In the final against sixth-seeded Maria Kirilenko, No.2 seed Azarenka rallied from 0-4 in the second set to win the title with a 6-3 6-4 victory.

Russia's Kirilenko lost just nine games en route to the Moscow final, and is projected to return to the Top 20. It will be her 12th week in the elite 20. (photo via Kremlin Cup)

The season-ending Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha have already lost two of the elite eighth singles qualifiers, Serena and Venus Williams, and two other, Jelena Jankovic and Elena Dementieva, are suffering fitness scares just a week before the $4.55 million tournament.

At the Kremlin Cup in Moscow, top seed Jankovic lost her opener to 268th-ranked Kazakh qualifier Zarina Diyas with a 6-1 6-2 score. The 2008 Kremlin Cup champion Jankovic complained of illness and difficult breathing and said she had been on antibiotics for about a week. In addition, Jankovic told the media she is soon to have a left eye surgery (she is just going to have something taken out from her eye).

The other tournament played this week is taking place in Luxembourg and it lost its top seed as well, as Dementieva retired ahead of her second round match against Polona Hercog. The reason for Dementieva’s withdrawal was an inflammation on her right foot.

All we and Doha can hope for is that the players recover in time and that the tournament doesn’t become the one of injured and tired stars. (photos: © Neal Trousdale)

Even though Li Na is currently ranked higher in the Race to the Sony Ericsson Championships, with five points more she is one spot ahead of Azarenka, but Li lost in the first round of this week’s Kremlin Cup while Azarenka moved into the second round with a victory 6-4 2-6 6-1 over Andrea Petkovic. Li is now the first substitute.

It will be the Belorussian’s second straight appearance in Doha. Last year she lost in the round-robin stage – she defeated Jelena Jankovic, but lost to Caroline Wozniacki and Agnieszka Radwanska. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

The 68th-ranked Chakvetadze won the Kremlin Cup in 2006, when she played fellow Russian Nadia Petrova in the final.

There was another notable upset in the early stage of the $1,000,000 Kremlin Cup and was also executed by an unseeded local favorite. Elena Vesnina defeated fifth seed Flavia Pennetta 6-4 2-6 6-2. The 55th-ranked Vesnina got the first break of the match in the sixth game, and although Pennetta broke back immediately it was the lower-ranked Vesnina who won the opening set. Pennetta was better in the following set, but in the decider Vesnina established a 4-1 lead and didn’t look back to seal victory.

Vesnina has been playing the Kremlin Cup every year since 2003 and lost in the first round four times, including the previous two years. (photo: chascow)

It was Anastasia Pavyuchenkova’s fourth appearance at the Kremlin Cup in five years and her fourth defeat in the first round. The highest-ranked teenager and world No.21 lost to Nicole Vaidisova in 2006, in 2007 to fellow Russian Evgeniya Rodina, in 2009 to Tsvetana Pironkova and this year to Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova 7-6(5) 2-6 6-0.

"I have nobody to blame for the defeat except myself," said the fourth-seeded Pavlyuchenkova, who won just seven points against Cibulkova in the deciding set at her home tournament.

"I played well in the first set and won the second but lost concentration completely in the third. The defeat is my fault only."

Pavyuchenkova and Cibulkova are now tied in head-to-head record at one all. Pavlyuchenkova defeated Cibulkova in the first round of Tokyo last month, 7-5 7-5. (photo: Stephane Martinache)

The 29-year-old Schiavone battled through a two and a half hour long first-round encounter with qualifier Nuria Llagostera Vives, but since then she didn’t drop a set and even lost only 12 games in her last three matches combined.

The world No.24 Schiavone had lost 10 out of her 11 previous finals, including one in Moscow in 2005; Govortsova's record in career finals is 0-2 now. (photo via Kremlin Cup)