{"id":8080,"date":"2013-08-10T09:45:36","date_gmt":"2013-08-10T09:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disnaija.com\/nigeria-news\/williams-faces-radwanska-in-semi-kvitova-ousted\/"},"modified":"2013-08-10T09:45:36","modified_gmt":"2013-08-10T09:45:36","slug":"williams-faces-radwanska-in-semi-kvitova-ousted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/williams-faces-radwanska-in-semi-kvitova-ousted\/","title":{"rendered":"Williams faces Radwanska in semi, Kvitova ousted"},"content":{"rendered":"
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World No.1 Serena Williams, who is seeking her eighth title of the year, stormed into the semi-finals at the WTA Rogers Cup in Toronto with a crushing straight-set win over Magdalena Rybarikova.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old Williams blitzed the world number 42 Slovak 6-1, 6-1 in a quarter-final match that took just one hour on Friday.<\/p>\n

“She had nothing to lose,” Williams said of Rybarikova. “I knew I had to play really, really good today.”<\/p>\n

\"Serena <\/p>\n

Serena Williams with Magdalena Rybarikova<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Williams next faces third-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland on Saturday for a spot in the final.<\/p>\n

Radwanska powered her way past Sara Errani of Italy 7-6 (7\/1), 7-5 in an earlier quarter-final match.<\/p>\n

It was a powerful display of tennis from the top seed Williams, who hammered seven aces and broke Rybarikova a half dozen times.<\/p>\n

“I’m definitely happier with the return game today,” Williams said. “I could still use some improvement. She served pretty well, but I was pretty happy with the results from today.”<\/p>\n

Williams is 8-0 since her fourth-round loss at Wimbledon to Sabine Lisicki.<\/p>\n

“I just felt like I was too tight, and just put a lot of pressure on myself there,” she said of the loss at Wimbledon. “I just needed to relax more than anything, which is what I’m doing.”<\/p>\n

Unseeded Romanian Sorana Cirstea also sent defending champion Petra Kvitova packing Friday in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

“It might come as a surprise for many people,” said Cirstea of her upset win. “It’s not really a surprise for me, because I know how hard I have been working for the past couple of weeks. “It’s nice to see the reward.”<\/p>\n

Cirstea rallied for a 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 victory over sixth-seeded Kvitova and advanced to a semi-final clash with China’s Li Na, the woman Kvitova beat in the final last year when the tournament was held in Montreal.<\/p>\n

Li battled through a tight first set then coasted to a 7-6 (7\/1), 6-2 victory over Dominika Cibulkova to reach the final four.<\/p>\n

The fourth seed from China, playing her first tournament since a quarter-final appearance at Wimbledon, needed an hour and 36 minutes to get past unseeded Slovakian Cibulkova, who launched her hardcourt build-up to the US Open with the Stanford title a fortnight ago.<\/p>\n

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