The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Venus Willaims and Jankovic enter semifinals

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Oct 31, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Venus Willaims and Jankovic enter semifinals

DOHA: Venus Williams reached the semifinals of the Sony Ericsson Championships on Friday with a little help from Svetlana Kuznetsova, and Jelena Jankovic also advanced by routing a tired Caroline Wozniacki.

Kuznetsova beat Elena Dementieva 6-3, 6-2 in their last round-robin match, which secured the American’s passage into the knockout round.

Dementieva would have advanced with a win but was dominated by her fellow Russian, less than 24 hours after a straight-set loss to Serena Williams on Thursday.

Venus, Kuznetsova and Dementieva all finished with one win and two losses in the Maroon Group, but the American won more sets. Serena won all three of her matches.

Both Williams sisters had the day off after playing on the first three days of the lucrative tournament, which is the last WTA Tour event of the year for the eight top-ranked women. Each round-robin win is worth $100,000, and the eventual winner takes home up to $1.55 million. Earlier on Friday, Jankovic beat Wozniacki 6-2, 6-2 to secure her place among the last four.

The results: At Doha (WTA Championships): White Group: Jelena Jankovic bt Caroline Wozniacki 6-2, 6-2. Maroon Group: Svetlana Kuznetsova bt Elena Dementieva 6-3, 6-2.

Thursday’s results: Maroon Group: Serena Williams bt Elena Dementieva 6-2, 6-4; Venus Williams bt Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-2, 6-7(3), 6-4.

At St. Petersburg (St. Petersburg Open): Quarterfinals: Marat Safin bt Denis Istomin 6-0, 7-6(4); Sergiy Stakhovsky bt Bjorn Phau 6-2, 7-5; Horacio Zeballos bt Ernests Gulbis 7-6(8), 6-4.

At Vienna (Bank Austria Tennis Trophy): Quarterfinals: Jurgen Melzer bt Radek Stepanek 6-2, 6-2; Philipp Kohlschreiber bt Nicolas Almagro 7-5, 6-4; Marin Cilic bt Feliciano Lopez 6-1, 6-4. Second round: Melzer bt Dominik Hrbaty 6-4, 7-5; Janko Tipsarevic bt Michael Berrer 7-6(3), 6-1.

At Lyon (Lyon Tennis Grand Prix): Quarterfinals: Ivan Ljubicic bt Florent Serra 7-6(6), 6-2; Michael Llodra Marc Gicquel 7-6(5), 6-4; Gilles Simon bt Julien Benneteau 7-6(5), 6-3. Second round: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga bt Olivier Rochus 6-3, 6-2; Simon bt David Guez 6-1, 6-2; Arnaud Clement bt Benjamin Becker 6-4, 6-3. — Agencies

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport