Victoria Azarenka’s 26-match winning streak was snapped on Wednesday by French seventh seed Marion Bartoli, who beat the world No.1 6-3 6-3 in the quarter-finals of the ATP/WTA Miami hardcourt event.
Azarenka’s season-long win streak earned her four titles, including her first grand slam title at the Australian Open, with which she gained the world No.1 ranking.
She also won in Sydney, Doha and Indian Wells.
It was the longest match winning streak on the WTA Tour since Martina Hingis went 37-0 in 1997.
Defending champion Azarenka may have been feeling the effects of a tough fourth-round match. Down a set and behind 5-2, she rallied to beat 16th seeded Dominika Cibulkova in three sets, 1-6 7-6 (9-7) 7-5, but she couldn’t engineer a similar comeback against Bartoli.
In the semi-finals Bartoli will play fifth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland who brought Venus Williams’ comeback event to a halt, downing the American 6-4 6-1 in the quarters.
She needed one hour and 21 minutes to overcome Williams, who was playing her first WTA tournament in more than six months after her abrupt withdrawal from the second round of the US Open, where she revealed she had been diagnosed with the auto-immune disorder Sjogren syndrome.
Williams, 31, is hoping to raise her world ranking high enough to allow her to compete at the London Olympics.
Currently 134th in the world, she is projected to move up to around 90th when the new rankings are released on Monday thanks to reaching the quarter-finals in Miami.
The top 56 in the world as of early June are eligible for direct entry into the Olympic tournament, which will be held at Wimbledon.
On the men’s side former winner Andy Murray battled into the semi-finals of the $US9.6 million Miami tournament.
The British fourth seed, chasing his second title of the season after winning in Brisbane earlier this year, rallied to beat Serb ninth seed Janko Tipsarevic 4-6 6-3 6-4.
Murray crashed out of his last tournament, losing his opener at Indian Wells, and he looked as if he could be headed for another exit when he lost six games in a row in this one.
The 24-year-old Scot will next face either sixth seeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga or world No.2 Rafael Nadal of Spain.
“It should be a great match because both are two of the most exciting players on the tour,” Murray said.
Murray improved to 5-3 lifetime against Tipsarevic who fell behind 2-4 before winning six straight games – four to win the first set and two more for a 2-0 lead in the second.
Murray rallied, however, to win the second set. He then converted a lone service break in the final set to take the match in two hours, 39 minutes.
Murray finished with six aces, two double faults and won 66 per cent of his first-serve points.
Besides winning in Brisbane this year, Murray also finished runner-up to Roger Federer in Dubai and lost a five-set thriller to Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open.
