On Sunday night, the official draw ceremony took place at the $4.9-million WTA Championships in Istanbul, dividing the eight players into two round-robin groups. Serena Williams is the only multiple champion at the year-end finale and is 35-5 against the rest of the field combined (9-1 this season), while Sara Errani is 4-23 and is the only one with a negative head-to-head record against all the three players in her group. Let's have a closer look at the draw.

RED GROUP: (1) Victoria Azarenka, (3) Serena Williams, (5) Angelique Kerber, (8) Li Na

World No.1 Victoria Azarenka is a leader in match wins this season with 67, she's also a title leader with six (tied with Serena Williams), and this fall she's been 13-0 in matches and 26-0 in sets. Serena is fifth in the list of match wins this season with 53, even though inactive this fall, and has a stunning 10-1 head-to-head record against Azarenka. Moreover, two Grand Slams and the Olympics are among Serena's six 2012 titles and three of the six she won without losing a set.  Read more »

The International-level title in Luxembourg may not be a milestone in Venus Williams' career who had won 43 titles before the tournament, including seven Grand Slams, but in the circumstances of her injuries the past two years, the Sjogren's syndrome diagnosis and the title drought dating back to February 2010, the former world No.1 can be delighted with a comeback to the winner's circle.

To win her 44th career title, Venus beat Belinda Bencic in the first round, ninth seed Mona Barthel in the second, in the quarterfinals took out top seed Roberta Vinci, the only seed left at the tournament at that stage, fought for more than two and a half hours against Andrea Petkovic in the semis and finally beat Monica Niculescu, whose only two WTA finals came in Luxembourg and last year she was defeated by Victoria Azarenka in the title match.

Venus beat Niculescu 6-2 6-3, but the scoreline suggests an easier match than it really was. Venus had to stay focused and return the persistent shots of Niculescu for one hour and 23 minutes. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

A month after winning Seoul, third seed Caroline Wozniacki went to the Kremlin Cup title by defeating Urszula Radwanska in the second round, then twice surviving a failure to serve out against fifth seed and defending champion Dominika Cibulkova in the quarterfinals, then again not serving it out in the second set of the semifinal against Sofia Arvidsson but winning in two hours and 34 minutes in three sets, and then finally beating Samantha Stosur 6-2 4-6 7-5.

At Wozniacki leading 6-2 4-3, Stosur won five straight games, including breaking the Dane to love at the start of the third set. Stosur was even leading 3-1 in the decider, but dropped her serve in the sixth game and was broken decisively in the 12th after two hours and 13 minutes.

Wozniacki has won $122,000 in prize money in her first Premier-level title since New Haven 14 months ago. It’s Wozniacki’s 20th career title and she’s the fourth active player after Serena Williams, Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova to have that many. Moreover, 13 of those titles are Premier and 7 are International. Wozniacki is now 20-11 in WTA finals, while Stosur is 3-12. (photo: sr_cranks)

Both this week's tournaments are at the semifinal stage, and while at the Premier-level Moscow we're having three of the top four seeds in the semis, the International-level Luxembourg had only the top seed in the quarterfinals and now she's out too.

Ana Ivanovic and Caroline Wozniacki, both in the shaky career periods, or in Ivanovic's case sort of an era, have made a nice progress to the big Moscow semifinals. The third-seeded Wozniacki took out defending champion Dominika Cibulkova, but only after serving for the match twice in the second set and both times getting broken at love to finally win in the third set, 6-2 6-7(1) 6-1. Wozniacki's semifinal opponent will be fellow Scandinavian Sofia Arvidsson, who had eliminated seed No.2 Marion Bartoli and now Maria Kirilenko, the only representative of Russia left in the draw, 6-3 6-3.

The other semifinal pairing is top seed Samantha Stosur vs. fourth seed Ana Ivanovic, in their first clash since 2009. Stosur beat Klara Zakopalova 6-1 6-3 in the quarterfinals, while Ivanovic beat fellow Serbian Vesna Dolonc 6-4 6-1 in their first career meeting. Read more »

At the Premier-level Kremlin Cup all the seeded players that were in action on Thursday moved into the quarterfinals in straight sets, wrapping up the second round. No.1 seed Samantha Stosur survived her first match of the tournament and tightly went past Alize Cornet 7-6(6) 7-5. Fourth seed Ana Ivanovic beat Russian qualifier Valeria Solovieva 6-1 6-4 and an interesting meeting is awaiting her with a new compatriot, Russian-born Vesna Dolonc who became Serbian in spring and has now reached her biggest career quarterfinal by winning all the games from 1-all in the first set against Simona Halep for a 6-1 6-0 victory. The encounter will be their first. Seventh seed Maria Kirilenko defeated Yaroslava Shvedova 7-5 6-4, after trailing 1-5 in the opening set.

Kremlin Cup quarterfinal matches: Samantha Stosur (1) vs. Klara Zakopalova, Ana Ivanovic (4) vs. Vesna Dolonc, Dominika Cibulkova (5) vs. Caroline Wozniacki (3) and Maria Kirilenko (7) vs. Sofia Arvidsson. Read more »