Holder Venus Williams completed her circuitous route to the WTA Championships final, beating Serbia’s Jelena Jankovic 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 on Saturday to set up yet another showdown with sister Serena.
Serena got past Caroline Wozniacki after the Dane pulled out with a stomach injury when trailing 6-4, 0-1.
The Williams sisters met across the net in the Qatari capital last week, Serena winning a three-set scrap in their Maroon Group clash.
There was to be no Williams clean sweep yesterday though, after they lost 2-6, 6-4, 10-8 in the doubles semi-final to Nuria Llagostera Vives and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez. The Spanish duo were to face world No. 1 pairing Cara Black of Zimbabwe and American Liezel Huber yesterday.
After her win over Svetlana Kuznetsova, some complicated mathematics edged Venus into the last four by virtue of sets won.
Jankovic also enjoyed good fortune to qualify for the last four when Dinara Safina retired after two games of their White Group clash on Wednesday.
■VIENNA OPEN
REUTERS, VIENNA
Home favorite Juergen Melzer followed up his quarter-final win over second seed Radek Stepanek by beating Janko Tipsarevic 4-6, 7-6, 6-4 on Saturday to reach the Vienna Open final.
The Austrian was set to meet top seed and world No. 13 Marin Cilic after his 6-4, 7-6 win over German Philipp Kohlschreiber.
■LYON GRAND PRIX
REUTERS, LYON, FRANCE
Gilles Simon’s hopes of securing a spot in the World Tour Finals suffered a setback when he was defeated 6-7, 6-3, 7-6 by fellow Frenchman Michael Llodra in the semi-finals of the Lyon Grand Prix on Saturday.
Llodra was to face Ivan Ljubicic in yesterday’s final after the Croatian dismissed French wildcard Arnaud Clement 6-2, 6-4.
■ST PETERSBURG OPEN
SAINT PETERSBURG, RUSSIA
Ukraine’s Sergiy Stakhovsky battled into the final of the US$750,000 St Petersburg Open after defeating Russia’s Marat Safin in the semi-final on Saturday.
Stakhovsky won 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in one hour, 48 minutes to level his head-to-head record with the local crowd favorite at one all.
In yesterday’s final, Stakhovsky was scheduled to meet eighth seed Horacio Zeballos of Argentina, who saw off Russian Igor Kunitsyn 7-6 (9/7), 6-3 in what was their first ever meeting.
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