Caroline Wozniacki had lost to Bojana Jovanovski twice this year, at the French Open and in Rome, but in today’s quarterfinals of the BGL BNP Paribas Luxembourg Open the top-seeded Dane avenged the defeats in a marathon against the eighth-seeded Serb, who put pressure in the second set, but lost four of the last five games of the match. Final score: 6-3 3-6 6-3. Next for Wozniacki, who has now clinched a first alternate spot at next week’s TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships, is third seed Sabine Lisicki, who beat Karin Knapp in their first career meeting 7-5 4-6 6-0.
Sloane Stephens was thrown out by Stefanie Voegele for the second straight tournament. The seed No.2 Stephens lost 6-3 3-6 6-2 and Voegele made her fourth semifinal this year in which she will meet Annika Beck, who beat Katarzyna Piter in the most dramatic match of the day 6-3 6-7(3) 7-6(5). Stephens will be the second alternate at the season-ending Championships.
At the same time at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow, seed No.7 Samantha Stosur eliminated fourth-seeded Ana Ivanovic 7-5 6-4, tying their head-to-head record to 3-3 after winning 10 of 13 games from 3-0 down in the first set. Stosur’s semifinal opponent will be eighth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, who bounced second seed Roberta Vinci 6-2 6-3. The other semifinal pair will feature fifth-seeded Simona Halep, who stopped Alisa Kleybanova 6-1 6-1, and Anastasia Pavlychenkova, who beat Daniela Hantuchova 6-0 6-4. (photo: Jimmie48)
