Wozniacki enters quarters
Dane edges out Cibulkova; second-seeded Seppi moves on
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 quarterfinals on Friday.
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 Saturday's semifinals. 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 semifinal.
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.
Second seed Andreas 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.
Stosur survives
Top seed Samantha Stosur survived a scare against Alize Cornet before beating the Frenchwoman 7-6, 7-5 to reach the quarterfinals on Thursday.
On the last match on centre court, 43rd-ranked Cornet served for the first set but failed to take her chances against the 2011 US Open winner, losing a tiebreak 8-6. Cornet also led 5-4 in the second, and after wasting three set points ran out of gas as Stosur secured a hard-earned victory. Roger-Vasselin now takes on giant Croatian Ivo Karlovic, who edged out Russian Alex Bogomolov Jr 7-6, 6-4 after serving 16 aces.
Seventh seed Carlos Berlocq of Argentina was also knocked out while Italy's second seed Andreas Seppi and fourth-seeded Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci advanced.
In the women's event, fourth-seeded Serbian Ana Ivanovic booked her spot in the last eight with a routine 6-1, 6-4 win over Russian qualifier Valeria Solovieva. "I think she looked nervous, especially in the first set, because it was probably her first big match," said Ivanovic. Dolonc, who took Serbian citizenship last year, crushed Romanian Simona Halep 6-1, 6-0 to reach her first quarterfinal this year.
Indians crash out
None of the Indian players could take advantage as Yuki Bhambri, who was the lone survivor till Thursday, also crashed out of the Asia Pacific Australian Open wild card play off tournament on Friday.
Unseeded Yuki lost 2-6, 3-6 to his second-seeded opponent Jimmy Wang from Taipei in the quarterfinal contest, which lasted an hour and 10 minutes.
Vishnu Vardhan had also moved to the last-eight stage on Thursday but pulled out of the event after defeat in the men’s doubles quarterfinals. Ankita Raina and national champion Prerna Bhambri had also lost their first round matches the same day.
