MOSCOW: Former world number one Caroline Wozniacki showed glimpses of her past form to beat last year’s champion Dominika Cibulkova 6-2, 6-7, 6-1 in the Kremlin Cup quarter-finals yesterday.
The third seed from Denmark, looking for her second WTA title in a month after winning the Korea Open, will now take on unseeded Swede Sofia Arvidsson in today’s semi-finals.
“It was a very good match today as both of us played very well,” Wozniacki, 22, told reporters.
“The difference at the end was that I could just keep my highest level up and I managed to win the most important points, especially at the beginning of the third set.”
Arvidsson eased past seventh seed Maria Kirilenko 6-3, 6-3, knocking out the last remaining Russian in both the men’s and women’s singles of the Moscow indoor event.
On the men’s side, Malek Jaziri beat Czech Lukas Rosol 7-6, 6-3 to become the first Tunisian player to reach an ATP World Tour semi-final.
Jaziri, who upset third seed Viktor Troicki in the second round on Wednesday, saved all seven of the break points he faced and converted one of his eight opportunities to claim victory in one hour 44 minutes.
“I’m really happy to reach the semi-finals here and if I’m lucky enough, why not make my first Tour final?” said the world number 112, who will face second seed Andreas Seppi today. Italy’s Seppi thrashed eighth-seeded Japanese Tatsuma Ito 6-2, 6-1 in less than an hour.
But French qualifier Edouard Roger-Vasselin, who knocked out top seed Alexandr Dolgopolov on Thursday, could not repeat his heroics, going down to giant Croatian Ivo Karlovic 7-6 6-3.
Karlovic, who at 2.08m (6’10”) is one of the tallest players on the Tour, fired 23 aces against 116th-ranked Roger-Vasselin.
REUTERS
