The destined all-Serbian semifinal: Ivanovic and Jankovic clash in Stuttgart

I hope you enjoyed our photographer Jimmie48‘s extensive coverage of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix (on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday). He’s finished with Stuttgart for this year, but soon he’ll be off to the Mutua Madrid Open, so stay tuned! 😉 Of course, we’re continuing our reporting about the Porsche tournament and I’m excited that we’ll have an all-Serbian semifinal at the prestigious claycourt event. Actually, the all-Serbian clash was meant to be, as Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic had been drawn to play each other in the first round before the draw had to be restructured due to withdrawals.

Which Serbian sister is leading the head-to-head stats? Ivanovic is 8-5 against JJ, although JJ is the one with one Stuttgart title to her name, while Ivanovic’s best previous result here were the quarterfinals last year.

What happened in today’s quarterfinals?

In a battle of two French Open champions, Ana Ivanovic scored the 400th victory of her career by beating Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-3 2-6 6-4. The Serb relatively handily won the first set, then allowed her opponent to cruise through the second, and then earned the crucial and only break of the third set in the ninth game before serving out the match.

In the last quarterfinal of the day, Jelena Jankovic outlasted Alisa Kleybanova 6-4 6-3. The quarterfinal appearance is a massive result for Kleybanova, who had defeated Petra Kvitova in the previous round and recorded her first Top 10 victory since coming back from the serious illness, Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The other semifinal pair of the 2014 Porsche Tennis Grand Prix will be Maria Sharapova vs. Sara Errani. Sharapova has remained undefeated at the event, recording her 11th straight victory in Stuttgart by taking out top seed Agnieszka Radwanska on the eighth match point, 6-4 6-3. Sara Errani was leading 6-3 6-7(8) 3-0 when Carla Suarez Navarro retired with a hand injury.