The quarter finals were a bundle of contrasts as some matches were easy, whilst others were epics.
(Rank/Seed)
1/1 Williams was overwhelming against (42/-) Rybarikova, breaking last weeks Washington DC winners 8 match win streak with a 61 61 win. The Slovak tried her best to mix up the play with slice and serve and volley but could only smile at the relentless quality of Williams. It was Rybarikova's 1st Premier 5 level quarter final, whilst Williams moves into her 5th semi final at this event.
4/3 Radwanska survived in a battle of the service breaks to beat (6/5) Errani 76(1) 75. Amazingly, there was 11 successive breaks of serve from 1-1 in the 1st to 1-0 in the 2nd, as Radwanska saved 2 set points before dominating yet another tiebreaker. It was a really gruelling contest with lots of crowd pleasing rallies, but Radwanska was fractionally better under pressure due to her willingness to flatten out her groundstrokes. Radwanska moves into her 2nd career semi final here.
5/4 Li maintained her perfect record against Stanford champion (20/-) Cibulkova, beating her for a 4th time 76(1) 62. She made sure she 'hit the ball' instead of allowing Cibulkova to dominate to make her 2nd successive semi final here having reached last years final.
Defending champion (7/6) Kvitova was surprisingly beaten 46 75 62 by Cirstea. After serving brilliantly against Stosur, Kvitova didn't get a good nights sleep and admitted she felt lethargic during the match. This contributed to her staggering 10 double faults (6 down break point) as she didn't feel she had the energy in her legs. However, having come from 0-4 down in the 2nd set to lead 5-4 she would have expected to win. Cirstea seems to be getting better with every match having saved match points earlier in the event and won 7 straight games from 4-5 down with her big, confident hitting. Her 2nd career win in 5 over the Czech sees her reach her 1st Premier 5 semi final, whilst it marks a second straight week that Kvitova has lost a close quarter final she should've won.
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