MIAMI, Florida—Svetlana Kuznetsova and Victoria Azarenka are the first players to reach the 2009 Sony Ericsson Open semifinals.
Kuznetsova, the 2006 champion in Miami, needed three sets to get past Caroline Wozniacki on Tuesday, and Victoria Azarenka stormed past Samantha Stosur in less than one hour.
Svetlana held match points early in the second set against Wozniacki, but lost her momentum and allowed Caroline to force a third set.
“I think when I was playing the right tactics and the right game and mixing her up I was in control of everything,” Kuznetsova said.
“I was till score 5-3 feeling very comfortable out there, but I got so dizzy and tired.”
Besides dizziness, Kuznetsova also started to cramp. She called for a trainer twice and finally managed to close out the match 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-1.
Azarenka had a much easier time advancing under the lights in the night session. The eleventh seed dominated from the first point of her match against Stosur and won 6-1, 6-0.
“I’ve been playing very well the last pretty much four weeks,” said Azarenka, who also reached the semifinals last week in Indian Wells. “I’m just very happy with the way I played, and I just want to keep going.”
Stosur had trouble serving and posted six double faults and a 41% first serve percentage.
Azarenka and Kuznetsova will play each other next in the semifinals. Svetlana leads their head-to-head record 3-0.
