Last week at Montreal Li Na lost a tough three-setter to Petra Kvitova in the final, but this week Li made one crucial additional step and went all the way to the Premier-level Western & Southern Open title, lifting the winner's trophy for the first time since her last year’s French Open triumph, after failing in three finals this season. Could the help of new coach Carlos Rodriguez already be showing results?

Li’s victim in the final was Angelique Kerber, nevertheless, the German has plenty of reasons to celebrate, as last year this time she was playing the qualifying for the International-level Dallas as world No.107, while the Cincinnati result has brought her to No.6 in the world rankings.

In the Sunday’s final, Li found herself 6-1 3-1 down, but in the 24-point eighth game of the second set, after wasting seven break points, Li finally fought her way into turning the match around and from then on she was writing the destiny of the match.

En route to the $385,000 trophy, the ninth-seeded Li defeated Sorana Cirstea in the second round, Johanna Larsson in the third, top seed Agnieszka Radwanska in the quarterfinals, Venus Williams in the semifinals, and eventually fifth seed Angelique Kerber, who made the biggest upset of the tournament by eliminating Serena Williams in the final eight round. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Li Na advanced to the Western & Southern Open final by beating an injury-affected Venus Williams 7-5 3-6 6-1, while Angelique Kerber, who eliminated hot Serena Williams in the quarters, continued to progress, and after ending Serena's 19-0 winning streak, she ended Petra Kvitova's 8-0 stretch with a 6-1 2-6 6-4 victory.

Unfortunately, Venus was not fully fit for the match, as she started feeling back pain shortly before the encounter:

Just in my warmup it was bothering me. I was like 'Oh, no'. I tried to fix it between the warmup and the match, but it didn't work.

Venus piled up five double faults in the first set, including one on a break point to go 3-2 down. She did crawl back to level at 5-5, but Li came out on top in the next two games. In the second set, Venus won five straight games to take the match to the decider, but then rapidly went down in the third set. Venus' serve was limited throughout the match, while in the third set her second serve fell to 63 mph. Read more »

Unexpectedly, it was Venus Williams who continued to progress at the Western & Southern Open, while Serena Williams fell in the quarterfinals, ending her 19-match winning streak with only her fourth defeat of the season.

Serena came to Cincinnati having won 36 of her last 37 matches, but her quarterfinal opponent, Angelique Kerber, was too solid, winning both of her two break point opportunities, while Serena's conversion remained 0%. Serena was 21% better than Kerber on first serve points won, but only 48% of her first serves went in, while she hit just four aces. Kerber, who has played at least the quarterfinals in 12 of 17 tournaments this year, will face Petra Kvitova in the semis. Kvitova is also on a winning streak, 8-0, having won Montreal and now three matches in Cincinnati, her last one a 6-3 7-6(4) victory over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Venus beat Samantha Stosur 6-2 6-7(2) 6-4 for her first semifinal of the year. Venus cruised through the first set, then didn't lose hope after losing the 61-minute second set and wasting the opportunity to serve it out at 5-2 in the third, completing the match while serving at 5-4 in the deciding  set. Next for Venus is Li Na, who took out top seed Agnieszka Radwanska 6-1 6-1.

Additional info: Excited about their triumphs at Wimbledon and the Olympic Games, the Williams sisters will team up for women's doubles at the  US Open.

Fashion info:  Stosur was wearing a custom Asics tennis dress. A dress of the similar cut will be available in 2013, while the orange and gray print will not be available for worldwide customers. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Venus and Serena Williams both won their Tuesday's matches at the Western and Southern Open – Venus battling past the London Olympic singles semifinalist Maria Kirilenko 6-3 6-7(5) 6-2 in the first round and Serena, gold medalist in singles, beating Eleni Daniilidou 6-3 6-4 in the second. In the post-match interview, Venus revealed that her goal is to qualify for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016 and she would play even if crippled, while Serena, winner of 44 titles, couldn't believe that the Cincinnati title is not in her résumé.

At present, Venus is dealing much better with her Sjögren's syndrome and the 32-year-old is nowhere near ending her career:

I'm very excited about Rio. That will probably be my last one. By that time I'll be creeping up in age. That would be an awesome career. I figure I'm going to spend more time retired than pro, so while I'm here I'm going to go for it. If I'm on one leg and I get to Rio, that's great, too. That's my whole goal: continue to work on my health and stay as healthy as possble – if that happens, I believe I can get to Rio.

At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Venus won women's doubles gold with Serena.

Here's how the younger sister got lost in the numbers:

I've won this tournament. I have. When it wasn't this big. But it counts. I did win this tournament, didn't I?

Maybe I didn't. I can't keep up. I don't think I did. Okay, whoops. Yeah, I didn't win this tournament. I thought I did. I really thought I did.

So many titles, who wouldn't lose track! (photos courtesy of Moo's Tennis Blog)

Justin Cohen, one of my tennis friends that I met thanks to my blog, attended the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati and took a close picture of Maria Sharapova's hand adorned with a beautiful engagement ring reportedly worth $250.000. The picture was taken after she won the Cincinnati title with a hard-fought victory over Jelena Jankovic in the final.

We learned about Sharapova's engagement to LA Lakers basketball player Sasha Vujacic last October and our first spotting of the huge ring was when the pair took the streets of LA. Any input on when the wedding will take place? During Wimbledon a commentator here was mentioning she would marry in an Orthodox church in Los Angeles in July, but apparently it was just a rumor.

One more photo of the ring after the jump. Read more »