Former No.1 Ana Ivanovic will take on 2011 US Open champion Samantha Stosur in the semifinals of the WTA’s Kremlin Cup.
Ivanovic beat fellow Serb Vesna Dolonc 6-4 6-1, while the top-seeded Stosur defeated Klara Zakopalova of the Czech Republic 6-1 6-3 in quarter-final matches on Friday.
Stosur, who kept Zakopalova back on the baseline and made it hard for her opponent to come forward, won six consecutive games in the first set. But the Australian trailed 3-1 in the second before recovering with a break in the sixth game and going on to serve out the match at love.
“I guess it’s sometimes hard to come in off my balls because I thought I was hitting the ball quite deep,” Stosur said. “When your opponent’s doing that it’s hard to come in. She likes to hit the ball hard and get her opponent stretching and then when she sees deep she comes in. But I think in the first set I was able to shut that down and play more offensive than what she was for much of the match.”
Ivanovic, the 2008 French Open champion, made the decisive break in the 10th game of the first set and never looked back.
“I was actually surprised she (Dolonc) was hitting the ball quite heavy,” Ivanovic said.
“I had a feeling that court one was a lot faster than center court, so that definitely took some adjusting.”
Stosur and Ivanovic both know they are in for a hard time on Saturday.
“You’ve got to be ready for anything,” Stosur said.
“I have to go out there and concentrate on my own game and play the way I need to and again just be ready to work hard, to be ready for some long rallies if they come out.”
Earlier, Caroline Wozniacki struggled to beat defending champion Dominika Cibulkova 6-2 6-7 (1-7) 6-1.
Wozniacki, another former No.1-ranked player, won four consecutive games in the first set and later took advantage of an ailing Cibulkova, who was playing with her right hip bandaged and took a medical timeout while trailing 2-1 in the third set.
“The difference at the end was that I just could keep my highest level up to the end and I managed to win most of the important points especially at the beginning of the third set,” Wozniacki said.
The 11th-ranked Wozniacki, who finished the last two seasons at No.1 on the WTA rankings, still has a chance to overtake Marion Bartoli of France at No.10 by the end of the season if she wins titles in Moscow and at the season-ending Tournament of Champions, scheduled for October 30 in Sofia, Bulgaria.
In her seventh semifinal this season, Wozniacki will face Sofia Arvidsson of Sweden.
The 46th-ranked Arvidsson, who is looking for her second title this season, broke twice in each set to eliminate the only Russian left at the Kremlin Cup, seventh-seeded Maria Kirilenko, 6-3 6-3.
In the men’s tournament, second-seeded Andreas Seppi of Italy advanced to the semifinals by beating Tatsuma Ito of Japan 6-2 6-1.
Seppi, who won his second career title in Belgrade in May, will next play Malek Jaziri, who became the first Tunisian to reach an ATP semifinal when he beat Lukas Rosol of the Czech Republic 7-6 (7-5) 6-3.
Croatian veteran Ivo Karlovic had 23 aces to beat French qualifier Edouard Roger-Vasselin 7-6 (7-4) 6-3. Karlovic will now play Thomas Bellucci of Brazil, who defeated Jerzy Janowicz of Poland 6-4 7-6 (7-3).
