TOKYO: Top two seeds Angelique Kerber of Germany and Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki roared into the semi-finals of the WTA Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo on Friday.

Top-seeded Kerber outplayed sixth-seeded Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova 6-3, 6-0 and Wozniacki, a former world number one, overcame Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro 6-3, 6-3 in the quarter-finals.

Kerber, 26, ranked eighth in the world, needed just 61 minutes to stop the 13th-ranked Slovakian.

Wozniacki, seeded second and reeling from her loss to top-ranked American Serena Williams in the US Open final two weeks ago, outlasted the Spaniard in a bout of long rallies.

Kerber will meet third-seeded Ana Ivanovic in the round of four on Saturday. The Serbian world number 10 beat Czech Lucie Safarova 6-3, 6-2 in a quarter-final.

Wozniacki’s semi-final opponent is another Spaniard — Garbine Muguruza, who outlasted Australian Casey Dellacqua 3-6, 7-6 (7/5), 6-3.

“Dominika is a good player and I knew I needed to be 100 percent.

Everything went good and I’m happy to be in the semis again,” said Kerber, who finished runner-up to Czech Petra Kvitova in last year’s Pan Pacific Open.

“We had long rallies and at the end it was all about trying to play chess out there, really,” said the 24-year-old Wozniacki, the world number nine, who reigned at the top of women’s tennis in 2010 and 2011.

“We opened up the court and tried to go for winners when we could,” she added.

“We were just trying to outplay each other. “The two players broke each other’s serve seven times in the first set.

After 2-2 in the second set, the Dane broke the 26-year-old Suarez Navarro in the fifth and seventh games before the world number 19 spaniard pulled one back.

In the ninth game, Wozniacki yielded no point as Suarez Navarro smashed wide from the net, double-faulted and hit a forehand long to end the match in nearly 100 minutes.

In the doubles semi-finals, the top-seeded pair of Cara Black of Zimbabwe and Indian Sania Mirza defeated Serbia’s Jelena Jankovic and Arantxa Parra of Spain 6-3, 6-2.

Black and Mirza, the defending champions, ranked seventh in the world, will face Garbine Muguruza and Carla Suarez Navarro in the final.

The fourth-seeded Spanish pair defeated second-seeded Americans Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears 6-4, 6-3 in another semi-final.

LEPCHENKO OUSTS RADWANSKA

SEOUL: Varvaro Lepchenko upset world number five Agnieszka Radwanska for the second time in two meetings as she ended the Pole’s title defence in the WTA Korea Open quarter-finals on Friday.

Lepchenko lost an opening-set tiebreaker but she came back with a vengeance to win 6-7 (4/7), 6-2, 6-2 and set up a semi-final against fellow American Christina McHale.

The result means former Wimbledon champion Radwanska, who also lost to Lepchenko in July, is still yet to successfully defend any one of her 14 career titles.

Former Korea Open winner Maria Kirilenko, playing on a wildcard as she pursues her comeback from injury, beat Estonia’s Kaia Kanepi 6-7 (3/7), 6-2, 6-3.

The Russian set up a semi-final against Czech second seed Karolina Pliskova, who beat America’s Nicole Gibbs in straight sets.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2014