WTA Tour Championships Day 3

photo credit:Carlos Andrés Restrepo

Day 3 of the 2009 WTA Tour Championships in Doha confirmed 1 of the 4 spots in the semi-finals. With 3 places still to be decided the final day of round robin matches has plenty at stake. Who will claim the final 3 berths in the semi-finals?

Victoria Azarenka, Caroline Wozniacki and Jelena Jankovic all have a chance in the white group to claim 2 of those spots whereas in the maroon group Venus Williams, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Elena Dementieva are all battling it out for 1 spot. It all comes down to day 4′s matches!

Serena Williams continued her great form to complete her round robin matches undefeated with 3 wins. Serena has qualified as No.1 from the maroon group and will play whoever finishes as the No.2 player from the white group in the semi-finals.

The No.2 seed Serena defeated No.5 seed Dementieva 6-2 6-4 after winning 8 of the first 10 games to register a lead that Dementieva could not recover from. Serena now leads their head-to-head battles 7-4 and winning the decider in 2009 to stand at 3-2 from their battles this year.

The no.7 seed Venus fought out a tough win over No.3 seed Kuznetsova to equal their head-to-head history at 4 wins each. Venus won 6-2, 6-7 (3-7), 6-4 to keep her hopes of making the semi-finals alive. Venus overcame her disappointment in not closing out the match in straight sets to focus on what really counted, the deciding 3rd set.

Venus has lost 2 extremely close matches and is now relying on Kuznetsova to defeat Dementieva, in which case Venus qualifies despite having 1 match win. Dementieva would qualify if she wins by claiming a 2nd match win. To date though Kuznetsova has the edge over her fellow Russian winning 6 of their 10 matches.

The No.4 seed Wozniacki defeated No.9 seed Zvonareva 6-0, 6-7 (3-7), 6-4 after having a 6-0 5-2 lead. Zvonareva saved 2 match points at 5-6 and had Wozniacki in trouble in the final set before the Danish star played through strong leg cramps to record her 2nd match victory.

Wozniacki’s great results warrant a spot in the semi-finals but her struggle yesterday forecast that she may have trouble to move well enough to beat Jankovic tonight. If Jankovic registers a win to keep her perfect record against the Dane, which currently stands at 2 wins, she will qualify for the semi-finals. If Wozniacki can stand up to the leg work required then Azarenka (pictured above), will join also qualify in the white group.

The draw for Centre Court on day 4 (Friday 30 October), at 5pm in Qatar follows this order:

(4) Caroline Wozniacki versus (8) Jelena Jankovic
(3) Svetlana Kuznetsova v. (5) Elena Dementieva
(6) Victoria Azarenka v. (Alt) Agnieszka Radwanska

Stay tuned for more coverage of the WTA Tour Finals as we update you with round robin results, who qualifies for the semi-finals and the women’s singles final, plus who claims the mantle of 2009 WTA Tour Champion.

For further details about this event on this tennis website click this link -> WTA Tour Champion 2009: Oct 27-Nov 1.