The Russian's 6-3, 6-1 demolition of Pennetta set up a mouth-watering semifinals with second seed and crowd favourite Daniela Hantuchova.
Maria Kirilenko was a trifle slow to start with, but shifted gears as the match wore on to outclass the formidable Flavia Pennetta in straight sets in the quarterfinals of the $175,000 Sunfeast Open at the Netaji Indoor stadium here on Friday.
The Russian's 6-3, 6-1 demolition of Pennetta set up a mouth-watering semifinals with second seed and crowd favourite Daniela Hantuchova. The Slovakian ace faced stiff resistance before overcoming Taipei's Yung-Jan Chan 6-4, 6-1 in another quarterfinal.
The other semifinal pits two players who have never stayed this long in a WTA Tour event. Briton Anne Keothavong, who has just two wins on the Tour since turning pro six years ago, stitched together three in a row en route to the last four stage, where she meets Mariya Koryttseva.
While the 24-year-old Briton outplayed Tour veteran Tzipora Obzlier 6-1, 6-3, Ukranian Koryttseva defeated the much higher-ranked Tatiana Poutchek 6-4, 6-2 in another last eight stage clash.
The 35th-ranked Kirilenko was expected to come through her match alright, but Pennetta, a former top-20 player and on a comeback trail, was capable of altering the script. For the first six games of the first set, there was nothing much to choose between the two.
The Russian broke first in the second game, but Pennetta, ranked 69th now, broke right back. But after 3-3, the momentum shifted drastically. Kirilenko allowed her rival just three points in the next three games.
She had the normally quick-moving Pennetta, a step or two slow with her solid ground strokes. The Italian had no answers to Kirilenko's forehand down-the-line winners, while the return of serves were spot on as the Russian broke Pennetta in the eighth game before holding serve for the set.
After a marathon opening game in the second set, which went to seven deuces, Pennetta just crumbled. She felt a couple of calls went against her. But she didn't have the desire to carry on as well, making far too many errors to make a fist of it and letting Kirilenko run away with the match.
Earlier, the London-based Keothavong didn't exactly come out firing on all cylinders from the word go. She was aggressive alright, but to her good fortune, Obziler looked totally out of sorts. That suited the 144th-ranked Briton. Keothavong was up a break even before the small gathering could settle down. The Israeli, her thigh strapped and in some sort of discomfort early on, hardly looked the player who had beaten the Bangalore Open winner Yaroslava Shvedova in the opener.
The errors flowed from her racquet thick and fast for the good part of the one-hour 12-minute encounter. Besides, the solid Keothavong made it doubly difficult for Obziler by making some fine winners. The Briton broke again in the fifth game to go up 5-0. A rout looked imminent at that stage. Eager to wrap up the set, Keothavong's backhand began to misfire. Four straight errors gave Obzlier the break, but the Briton broke right back to take the opening set and then raced to a 3-0 lead in the second.
By then, Obziler began to find a little more control over her shots, but not good enough to alter the script. Keothavong just held her nerves and her serves to go through.
