For the second straight day, Svetlana Kuznetsova opened up WTA proceedings on Stadium 1 with another accomplished display, overturning two recent straight set losses to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova with a straight sets win, 6-3 6-2.  This was a very similar match to her fourth rounder against Garcia – she played a great opener buoyed by some solid stats on serve, was broken in the first game in the second set, but then came back and finished the match in emphatic fashion. Pavlyuchenkova was all over the shop at the end.

Oh Sveta!

And here’s that selfie.

Kuznetsova will play Karolina Pliskova in the semi-finals of Indian Wells, who won her sixth consecutive match against Garbiñe Muguruza, 7-6(2) 7-6(5). Pliskova was unable to serve out both sets but brought it back in the two tiebreaks. This sounded like an excellent match and i’ll definitely be catching up with it later on YouTube.

In the doubles, Lucie Safarova and Bethanie Mattek-Sands defeated first time pair, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Kristina Mladenovic, 6-3 3-6 10-8. Kuznetsova and Mladenovic were both complimenting each other in press and seemed to have a great time playing together so I wouldn’t be surprised to see them play again soon. Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina also won through to the semi-finals.

A preview of the first quarter-final on Thursday between Caroline Wozniacki and Kristina Mladenovic is linked below.

The second quarter-final will be contested between Venus Williams and Elena Vesnina – the Russian player actually leads the head-to-head, 3-2 and won their most recent match last year in Miami in three sets. I’ve constantly written off both players in my predictions this week and equally stumped with this one! Venus’s groundstrokes have been lethal, with varying levels of precision and she has been competing so well all year. Under the radar, Vesnina is having a superb year and doing a great job at backing up her 2016 season. Mostly on the fence with this one… 52-48 in favour of Venus.

Naomi and Madison 😂😂😂

Alizé Cornet is set to return in Miami.

The entry list for Stuttgart is out! It’s another cracker with eight of the world’s top ten although some of the top alternates would certainly add to the depth. I’d love to see Serena play this tournament one year but I doubt it’ll happen with its placement in the calendar. Stuttgart will be one of the most anticipated tournaments of the year with Maria Sharapova already confirmed to make her comeback with a wild card. I just hope that the WTA’s streaming platform is up by then…

And finally, Wimbledon’s No. 1 Court is coming along!

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