Kim Clijsters was playing her first match since ’s-Hertogenbosch in June and a right ankle injury, but her comeback lasted for only a set and a half as she retired from her opening match at the Rogers Cup against Zheng Jie with left abdominal injury. Clijsters won the first set 6-3, and retired in the second at 1-2.

Clijsters already had an ultrasound and she was diagnosed with partial tear in her left stomach muscle, which she first felt during her warmup for the match.

Serena Williams’ comeback is still fresh and she has already clinched a title at Stanford and in her first-round match against Alona Bondarenko at the Rogers Cup Serena won stunning 100% of points on first serve and 76% on the second. Also, in the 6-0 first-set win Serena lost only four points. Not to mention that the set lasted just 16 minutes! Final result: 6-0 6-3.

Ana Ivanovic also advanced to the second round, not troubled by qualifier Zhang Shuai en route to a 6-1 6-1 victory. Another Serbian, Bojana Jovanovski, got past the first round, but it was a retirement win – Jelena Dokic withdrew while trailing 2-0 with right shoulder injury. Last week’s titlist at Carlsbad Agnieszka Radwanska also won her first round, with a 6-4 6-1 win over Elena Vesnina. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Monday at the Rogers Cup was a bad day for seeded players, as only one advanced and three of the other four fell to qualifiers in their opening matches.

The first in action was the winning seed, Samantha Stosur, but even her victory came only after she lost the first set 6-4 to Ayumi Morita. Final score: 4-6 6-2 6-3.

No.9 seed Marion Bartoli had won 19 of her last 23 matches, including her Eastbourne title, and had a perfect 4-0 head-to-head record against Galina Voskoboeva, but in the first round of the Rogers Cup the Kazakh qualifier was better and took Bartoli out 6-3 6-3. It is Voskoboeva's first Top 10 victory and at the recent Baku Cup she played her first WTA semifinals. Read more »

World No.2 Caroline Wozniacki was supposed to play her Rogers Cup semifinal against Svetlana Kuznetsova on Saturday but persistent rain in Montreal delayed the most part of the match all the way to Monday, which forced the final to be played shortly after.

The 20-year-old cruised to a 6-2 6-3 victory over Kuznetsova in the semifinals without dropping serve and only hours later played for the title against Vera Zvonareva, who reached the final after Victoria Azarenka retired due to a blister on her left foot at 7-6(6) 1-0 down.

Wozniacki disposed of two of the highest-ranked Russian players in one day as she followed the win over world No.12 Kuznetsova with a convincing 6-3 6-2 win over eighth-ranked Zvonareva.

Wozniacki has collected her ninth Sony Ericsson WTA Tour singles title and third of the year (after Ponte Vedra Beach and Copenhagen). She and Kim Clijsters are now the only two players that have won three titles this season. The two faced each other in the last year's final of the US Open, and this time they will be the Top 2 seeds at the Grand Slam. (photo via Rogers Cup)

Rogers Cup semifinals were supposed to be played on Saturday but we only saw two games of the match between Caroline Wozniacki and Svetlana Kuznetsova when the rain interfered. There were attempts and plans to resume play later on Saturday and on Sunday, but the rain wouldn’t permit it and the latest official news is that both the singles semifinals will take place on Monday, August 23 at 10 am local time. The singles final is scheduled for 1:30 pm, only three and a half hours after the start of the semifinals.

The semifinal between Wozniacki and Kuznetsova will be played on Centre Court, while Victoria Azarenka and Vera Zvonareva will face each other on National Bank Court. (source: Rogers Cup)

Kim Clijsters entered the Rogers Cup quarterfinal against Vera Zvonareva on a seven-match winning streak which included the Cincinnati title, and even though the Belgian finished the match, her performance was obviously hampered by a hip injury and she lost 2-6 6-3 6-2.

The fifth-seeded Clijsters was leading 6-2 3-2 when Zvonareva, the No.8 seed, won nine straight games to take the second set and establish a 5-0 lead in the third. Clijsters then produced a mini-comeback, winning two games in a row, but Zvonareva finished her off in the following game. Clijsters appeared to hurt her hip in the second set, but didn’t want to retire from the match. She received medical treatment and had her left thigh heavily taped. Her US Open title defense is in question now, the tournament starts August 30.

Earlier in the day, seed No.11 Svetlana Kuznetsova earned her semifinal place at the Rogers Cup with a 6-1 6-3 victory over Zheng Jie, who took out defending champion Elena Dementieva in the previous round.

The 2004 US Open champion Svetlana Kunzetsova has had a solid introduction to this year’s US Open, winning the title in San Diego and now reaching her first Rogers Cup semifinal in seven visits. The Russian lost in the first round of Cincinnati, but it was in three sets to Maria Sharapova, the eventual finalist and almost the winner.

"I was a little bit lost for a while, but now I know what I have to do. Winning matches makes you a totally different player and now I know how to do it again," Kuznetsova said after defeating Zheng. (photo courtesy of Fiji Water)