As promised, Women's Tennis Blog is continuing its tradition of revising on-court outfits from the season behind us. This year's retrospections will start with the best-dressed WTA player – Nike-clad Maria Sharapova.

Sharapova started the season late, because of her career-threatening shoulder injury, playing her first match of 2009 at the BNP Paribas Open in March. She was introducing herself to competitive tennis slowly, playing doubles first, but her style had to be spot-on from the very beginning, and it was.

People argued that Sharapova’s Roland Garros dress had too much fabric, but I liked it, and I especially favored the blue color against the red clay. Read more »

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Tenth seed Flavia Pennetta of Italy defeated Australian 13th seed Samantha Stosur 6-4 6-3 in the final of the LA Women's Tennis Championships presented by Herbalife to claim her eighth and biggest singles title.

Stosur committed eight double faults and was broken four times, including three in the second set. In addition, the 25-year-old Stosur made 32 unforced errors, compared to Pennetta's 16.

Last year's LA finalist Pennetta pulled off two Top 10 upsets to reach the final. She defeated Nadia Petrova and Vera Zvonareva in back-to-back matches, before overcoming former world No.1 Maria Sharapova in the semifinals.

Pennetta is now on an 11-match winning streak, winning back-to-back titles in Palermo and Los Angeles. Doubles specialist Stosur, who has 22 doubles titles to her name, fell to 0-5 in singles finals after this latest defeat.

Winning the LA Women's Tennis Championships title Pennetta earned $107,000. Interestinlgy, although it's Pennetta's eighth singles title, it's only her second one from a non-claycourt tournament. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

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Australian Samantha Stosur decisively defeated unseeded Romanian Sorana Cirstea 6-3 6-2 and advanced to her first final this season. The 19-year-old Cirstea, ranked 28th in the world, had upset Caroline Wozniacki and Agnieszka Radwanska en route to the semifinals.

No.13 seed Stosur has played four singles finals on the WTA Tour, and has won 22 doubles titles, but singles titles are still lacking in her résumé and she will be looking for her first one this weekend at the LA Women's Tennis Championships presented by Herbalife.

Tenth-seed Flavia Pennetta of Italy edged an unseeded Russian Maria Sharapova 6-2 4-6 6-3. Sharapova, still trying to find the form she lost due to the long shoulder-injury layoff, hit 61 unforced errors, which included 16 double faults.

The 61st-ranked Russian said she had made good accomplishments, but there was a lot of room for progress as well, which takes time.

Stosur was a semifinalist last week in Stanford, while Pennetta, last year’s runner-up in Los Angeles, is on a 10-match winning streak, having come to LA after winning the trophy in Palermo.

Stosur and Pennetta will play each other for the first time. (photos via Ralf Reinecke and chascow)

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The quarterfinals of the LA Women’s Tennis Championships are over and we have our semifinalists: Maria Sharapova will play Flavia Pennetta, and Samantha Stosur will face Sorana Cirstea.

Maria Sharapova claimed a straight-set win over Poland’s Urszula Radwanska, but it was far from easy – the Russian broke Radwanska only once in the first set, in the 18-point third game, and was 3-5 down in the second set. The final score was 6-4 7-5.

Seed No.10 Flavia Pennetta defeated second seed Vera Zvonareva 6-4 6-2, and thus earned her tenth Top 10 win. Pennetta is now on a nine-match winning streak, having won in Palermo prior to playing the LA tournament.

Sharapova and Penneta will meet in the semis. They have played each other two times so far, but their last encounter was over three years ago.

No.13 seed Samantha Stosur rallied from 6-4 3-1 down to beat No.14 seed Zheng Jie 4-6 6-3 6-4, the winner over world No.1 Dinara Safina in the third round. Stosur will play Soraca Cirstea in the semis, after the Romanian won a marathon with No.8 seed Agnieszka Radwanska 7-6(4) 1-6 7-5.

Stosur easily won the only meeting with Cirstea, which was in this year's French Open quarterfinals. (photos courtesy of Stephane Martinache and Bobby)

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China's Zheng Jie recorded one of the biggest wins of her career by beating world No.1 Dinara Safina 7-5 4-6 6-4 at the $700,000 2009 LA Women’s Tennis Championships presented by Herbalife.

The 23nd-ranked Zheng had beaten a world No.1 before – Ana Ivanovic in the third round of last year's Wimbledon – but had never beaten Safina.

"She’s a good player and it’s tough to play her," said Safina after the third-round defeat. "In this match I didn’t do the right things. I should have played better. Today, she took her chances and beat me."

Zheng, the 14th seed, will next face Australian 13th seed Samantha Stosur, who dominated current world No.11 Ana Ivanovic 6-3 6-2 in the third round. Stosur has scored her sixth win over a Top 15 opponent this year. Also, she has defeated former top-ranked players in consecutive weeks, having beaten Serena Williams in the Stanford quarterfinals.

World No.61 Maria Sharapova, after upsetting third seed Victoria Azarenka in the previous round, rebounded from a slow first-set start for the second straight day and defeated Alona Bondarenko 4-6 6-0 6-3. In the quarterfinals, Sharapova will face Poland's Urszula Radwanska, who got a walkover from No.12 seed Li Na due to a right knee injury. (photo via Sony Ericsson WTA Tour)

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