Caroline Wozniacki will face China’s Peng Shuai in the final of the Brussels Open after beating Francesca Schiavone 6-4 4-6 6-3 on Friday.

In a match lasting 2 hours, 32 minutes, Wozniacki kept her cool in the final set and will now seek her fourth title of the year before the French Open. Peng caused an upset to reach her first final since 2008 by beating number-three ranked Vera Zvonareva 6-3 6-3. The number 31 seed relied on her powerful serve to overcome the Russian. It was Peng’s first victory over Zvonareva who made several uncharacteristic errors throughout. “I’m really excited to go to the final,” Peng said after her victory. “I played her many times and lost many times.” Yet Peng was not intimidated and was dominant throughout. She slammed seven aces on the slow clay, compared to none for the Russian. Zvonareva never found her touch as she was pressed all over the court.

Later, in the best match of the tournament so far, Schiavone fought back against Wozniacki with attacking play to force a third set.  Schiavone had lost to the Dane three times on hard court since beating her in the quarter-final on the way to the French Open title. In a nervous third set, both players were error-prone on their serve, but in the end Wozniacki won the biggest points. She won the match with a volley that wrong footed Schiavone.

 

Shuai Peng, on an ‘Oudin-like’ run, defeats Sharapova!

Shuai Peng is 5’8″ according to the stats on her home page, but on court against the 6’2″ Maria Sharapova she looked a lot smaller when they stood at the net for the coin toss. But as their 3rd round match progressed it was Peng who grew in stature while Sharapova looked for a place to hide.

In her opening match Peng easily defeated Shnedova 6-2, 6-3. She followed up that win with an impressive come from behind win over Jelena Jankovic 4-6, 7-5, 6-2, and suddenly this young Chinese player was the talk of the town. Just as Melanie Oudin did in New York, the local crowd was hopeful that Peng could emulate her American compatriot and pull off a miracle against Maria Sharapova.

Their match was not close, Peng winning in straight sets 6-2,6-4. “I was having trouble with a few things,” Sharapova said in her post-match press conference. “It was not my day I guess. Usually I’m able to, when things are not going well, to fight and get myself going, and I was not able to do that today for some reason. I’m not sure why, but sometimes you have those days.”

 Peng now moves on to face the winner of the Petrova/Williams contest in the next round, where a victory over either one would be another crowd pleaser.

Home town favourite defeats Jankovic.

In another early-round upset, crowd favorite Shuai Peng defeated Jelena Jankovic, 2008 China Open champion and this year’s No. 8 seed, on Tuesday in Beijing’s National Tennis Center.

　　A confident Jankovic took the first set 6-4, then dropped the next two to Peng, 5-7, 2-6.

　　Peng (No. 53) grew increasingly stronger and more assured as the match progressed. One of the lower-ranking players in the main draw, she had defeated qualifier Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan 6-2, 6-3 in the first round.

　　Jankovic was the fourth player among the top 10 seeds to exit the tournament, the third in the last 24 hours. She followed Caroline Wozniacki (No. 5 seed); Venus Williams (No. 3 seed) and Dinara Safina (No. 1 seed).

　　Safina lost Monday night to Shuai Zhang, a wild card entry from China who beat Iveta Benesova of the Czech Republic in the first round, 6-4, 6-2.

　　In a post-match press conference, Jankovic blamed an arm injury for much of her poor showing in the match against Peng.

　　”It was very difficult and I couldn’t play my best tennis,” she said. “Even though in both circumstances I still had a chance to claim both sets, unfortunately I got into a turn and it was difficult for me, so she took advantage of that.”

　　”I love playing in China, but I couldn’t hit the ball as hard as I could. You can’t control injuries. You think you’ll be all right, but your arm is giving up.”