Serena Williams brushed aside 2011 winner Petra Kvitova by 6-2 6-3 on Thursday to enter the semifinals of WTA Championships.
No doubt, the defending champion was constantly focused against the former champion from the Czech Republic. She hit 27 winners and 11 immaculately delivered aces to take her total to a remarkable 468.
Williams expressed that she is feeling pretty good and was really aggressive tonight. She added that Petra was aggressive too, but she thinks her serve did really well. In fact, she is just glad to stay in the tournament and didn't have any expectations after coming there. She just wanted to come and enjoy herself and that is what she has done.
Williams was intense, rhythmical, poised and completely blinkered to thoughts against Kvitova outside the court. Anyway, she was 15-40 down in the first game when Kvitova's early ball hit gave a warning of her potential. From that time onwards, Williams surged into a higher gear.
Remarkably, it was her third victory in three days, which implies that now she has a day's rest prior to entering into the final with a match against the runner-up in the rival group, which could be either Li Na, Jelena Jankovic or Victoria Azarenka.
Till date Azarenka has so far found it harder than Williams to remain mentally in good condition. Another player was Agnieszka Radwanska-the third-seeded Pole, who had hardly offered against Angelique Kerber of Germany and quitted the tournament with three losses.
Kerber was the last player to qualify for the tournament and was not the first to leave it. Of course, she still has an outside chance of taking her wrong-footing angles apart from robust endeavor into the last four. However, she has to deliver a solid victory over Kvitova to achieve it.
Li advanced to the brink of another significant first with a 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 victory over Jelena Jankovic, who is the former world number one from Serbia. Undoubtedly, Li is already the first Chinese singles player to win a Grand Slam title and to have reached the world's apex five. Currently, she is within the touching distance of becoming the first to qualify for the semi-finals in the tournament.
Li scored three points for a 4-2 lead in the 2nd set, before losing five games at a stretch and most of her momentum. Then allowed slip a break of serve advantage in the final set to be pegged back to 3-3.
However, Jankovic, who has made an admirable return to the world's top eight following two career-threatening years with injury problems, was courageous and adequate tenacious, both as a better server and more tactically positive than in the past.
If other results proceeds correctly, she may qualify irrespective of the result of her previous match on Friday, which is a clear repeat of the Australian Open final against Victoria Azarenka.
Li commented that Williams was playing unbelievable today, so it was more mental, and of course she was really happy that she could play well once more at the end of the match. She assured that at least she is one more step now and that is pretty good news.
