JOIN USSafina, Wozniacki in final
After her success in Rome last week, 23-year-old Russian Safina is bidding for a second consecutive claycourt title in Madrid and will play ninth seed Caroline Wozniacki in Sunday's final. The Danish 18-year-old earlier powered to a 7-6, 6-3 victory over former world number one Amelie Mauresmo to clinch a place in her fourth final of the year.
Safina broke the Schnyder serve to love in the opening game in the sunshine in the new Magic Box stadium and raced to a 3-0 lead.
Schnyder broke back immediately as errors started to appear in Safina's game but the Russian ultimately had too much power for the 30-year-old and three more breaks had her serving for the match at 5-2 in the second set.
She wrapped up victory on her second match point when Schnyder sent a forehand return wide.
Frenchwoman Mauresmo, twice a Gand Slam winner, missed a chance to serve out the first set against Wozniacki earlier on Saturday and faded badly in the tie-break to lose it 7-1.
The pair swapped breaks at the start of the second set before the Dane stepped up a gear in the sixth game to break again for a 4-2 lead.
Mauresmo saved one match point with a typically elegant backhand winner but sent a forehand long on the next one to put Wozniacki through to Sunday's final.
"It was a tight one, a good fight, she made me play every time an extra shot," Mauresmo, 29, said at a news conference. "I wish I could have had a little bit more energy to make the difference out there today. After quite a busy week for me it's a little bit frustrating to come up short physically but that's how it is."
Sania-Chuang ousted
Sania Mirza and Chia-Jung Chuang fought valiantly but lost a tough semifinal battle to crash out of the euro 3,500,000 Madrid Open, going down 6-7 (4-7), 4-6 to third seeds Kveta Peschke and Lisa Raymod.
Prakash Amritraj and Harsh Mankad are one step away from winning ATP Challenger Tour’s doubles titles, having reached the final of different events. Prakash and American partner Rajeev Ram overcame a second-set lapse to knock out third-seeded Russians Michall Elgin and Alexandra Kudryavtsev 7-6 (8), 1-6, 10-5 in the semifinals of the euro 64,000 Izmir Cup in Turkey.
At the $50,000 Sarasota Open in Longboat Key, United States, Harsh Mankad and his partner Kaes Van’t Hof came from behind to script the ouster of the top seeded pair of Ball Carsten and Travis Retternmaier 2-6, 6-3, 10-5 in their semifinal encounter