Maria Sharapova beat world No.4 Petra Kvitova 6-3 6-3 in the French Open semifinals to reach her first final at the tournament in three tries and reclaim the No.1 ranking, dethroning Victoria Azarenka who's occupied the position for 19 weeks. Sharapova first became No.1 on August 22, 2005 and the last time she was No.1 was in 2008. In total, she spent 17 weeks on top of the rankings and from June 11, 2012 she will enter her 18th week.

There's another milestone Sharapova can reach in the French Open final: she will have a chance to complete a career slam (own a title from each major) and become the tenth woman in history to do so.

Sara Errani overcame a second-set slump to upset Samantha Stosur 7-5 1-6 6-3, winning 12 of the last 15 points of the encounter to reach the championship match of Roland Garros. As seed No.21 and a player that exited a Grand Slam during the first three rounds on 17 out of 18 occasions (she played the quarterfinals of the 2012 Australian Open), Errani is a surprise finalist, but when you realize that she's won the biggest number of titles on clay this season, with trophies in Acapulco, Barcelona and Budapest (16 straight claycourt matches!), it all makes sense. Read more »

Maria Sharapova rebounded from her chaotic fourth-round match and eased past dangerous Kaia Kanepi 6-2 6-3 to reach her third career Roland Garros semifinals where she will face Petra Kvitova for a chance to reclaim the top ranking. Moreover, the Russian is now only two wins away from completing a career slam, having already lifted the trophy at Wimbledon in 2004, the US Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in 2008. The fact that she's 3-2 against Kvitova and 2-0 this season against the Czech, including the 2012 Stuttgart semifinals on clay, additionally speaks in her advantage.

After the tricky match against Klara Zakopalova that lasted three hours and 11 minutes and featured 21 breaks of serve in 30 games, the second-seeded Sharapova continued in the fashion of her first three rounds, straightforwardly finishing the job against the 23rd-seeded Kanepi in 74 minutes. Read more »

Sixth seed Samantha Stosur stormed into her third semifinal at Roland Garros and her opponent will be Sara Errani, a first-time Grand Slam semifinalist, against whom she has a 5-0 head-to-head record, including this year's defeat of the Italian in the second round on the clay of Rome.

In the quarterfinals, the 2010 runner-up Stosur took out Dominika Cibulkova, world No.1 Victoria Azarenka's conqueror, 6-4 6-1. The 15th-seeded Cibulkova converted only one of ten break point opportunities, and that one helped her approach Stosur, from being 5-2 down in the first set, Cibulkova moved to 5-4, but she didn't converted her break chances to level to 5-5. Stosur then won the first set and 31 minutes later the whole match. The Australian is yet to lose a set this year at the French Open. Read more »

Every Grand Slam is a unique opportunity for tennis fashion to step up and shine in the best light, so here at Women's Tennis Blog I always compile a collage of WTA photos to show the variety of styles in one place. For this French Open I played with movie making a bit and made this slideshow video. I hope you like it! Of course, don't forget to click the YouTube "Like" button if you do!

I included a lot of brands in the video, so that you get as comprehensive picture as possible. You can see players wearing Nike, Adidas,  Lotto, Reebok, Anta, Lacoste, Asics, Under Armour, EleVen, Fila and Adidas by Stella McCartney.

As you'll notice in the video, my pick for the best look of the 2012 French Open is Serena Williams, even though her display of the three-shade green Nike dress lasted for just one match (a long and exciting one, though). Also perfect was Ana Ivanovic and all the others who sported the Adidas Adizero style in lime and core energy.

Who's on your best-dressed list?

It's awesome being regular with these fashion overviews, so now we can easily refer to the past and compare. Check out Roland Garros designs in the past two years.

• 2011: Spring tennis fashion Roland Garros edition
• 2010: Roland Garros fashion radar – WTA outfits

Also, compare the claycourt looks with the styles sported on the blue courts in the Australian sun at Melbourne 2012.

This is hilarious! WTA players have no clear idea about who the Top 5 players in the rankings are, and to make things worse, not even world No.3 Agnieszka Radwanska knows who is ranked just below her! They are all pretty good with the Top 3, but the Top 5, hmmm, too difficult. Interestingly, they all think that Li Na is in the Top 5.

Elena Bovina guesses that Jelena Jankovic is No.5, and she's fallen out of the Top 20! Read more »