Serena Williams has been way beyond her competition and yet again, for who knows which time, she reaffirmed it by dominating Victoria Azarenka in the Internazionali BNL d'Italia final and winning her fifth title this season, the fourth consecutive (after Miami, Charleston and Madrid)!

The American is now heading to the French Open with almost perfect record on dirt since the start of the 2012 claycourt season – 33-1 – her only loss being the shocking upset by Virginie Razzano in the first round of the last French Open. This season she's won 16 matches on clay and this week in Rome all the wins were in straight sets, actually she lost a total of just 14 games en route to the Premier-level title and 343,548 EUR prize, beating Laura Robson after a first-round bye, seed No.14 Dominika Cibulkova in the third round, Carla Suarez Navarro in the quarterfinals, the underdog story of the tournament Simona Halep in the semis and finally the third-seeded Azarenka 6-1 6-3, by serving the match out at love after earning a triple match point with back-to-back aces.

This is Serena's 51st career title and her eighth on clay, which makes her the third active WTA player with the biggest number of claycourt titles, after leader Anabel Medina Garrigues (10) and sister Venus Williams (9). (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Serena Williams extended her career-best winning streak to 23 matches, improved to 32-1 on clay since the start of 2012 and is now looking for her fourth consecutive title, after Miami, Charleston and Madrid. Her last obstacle is Victoria Azarenka, who does trail 2-11 in their head-to-head statistics, but she was the one who won their last meeting, the final of Doha in February 2013.

It was a quick semifinal victory for world No.1 Serena Williams over the upsetter of the tournament, Simona Halep, as the American finished the match 6-3 6-0, the only resistance coming from Halep early on when she broke for a 2-1 lead in the first set.

In the second semifinal, the third-seeded Azarenka defeated seventh seed Sara Errani, who will join the Top 5 in the rankings on Monday thus becoming only the second Italian ever to achieve that feat. After storming through the first set, allowing her opponent just a handful of points, Azarenka was made to work in the second set and even had Errani serving for the set at 5-4, but eventually the Belarusian managed to close it out in straights 6-0 7-5. (via WTA Tour, photos: sr_cranks)

At the Internazionali BNL d’Italia, Romanian world No.64 Simona Halep is scoring huge victories one after the other and she’s s now through to the biggest semifinal of her career where the concrete wall of Serena Williams is likely to end her dream run. However, we have to mention that their last and only meeting of two years ago, even though on grass, was a tough three-setter, won by Williams 3-6 6-2 6-1.

After going through qualifying and beating former world No.5 Daniela Hantuchova to enter the main draw, Halep dispatched two-time Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova in the first round, fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska in the second, seed No.13 Roberta Vinci in the third and today she triumphed over former world No.1 Jelena Jankovic after coming from the brink of defeat in the third set, always catching up with Jankovic’s leads, and saving two match points to eventually win 4-6 6-0 7-5. Halep’s semifinal opponent, reigning No.1 Serena, eased past Carla Suarez Navarro 6-2 6-0 and recorded the best winning streak of her career with 22 successive matches.

As for the other semifinal, seventh seed Sara Errani received a walkover when two-time defending champion Maria Sharapova withdrew with a viral illness. Still, she stayed at the tournament long enough to have the opportunity to wish her recently-publicly-confirmed boyfriend a happy 21st birthday (it was after her Thursday's third-round win over Sloane Stephens). Errani's semifinal obstacle will be third seed Victoria Azarenka, who defeated ninth Samantha Stosur 6-4 1-6 6-3 in the last quarterfinal. (photos by Francesca Moscatelli, Beyond the Baseline)

In the golden period of her career Jelena Jankovic won back-to-back Internazionali BNL d’Italia titles (2007 and 2008) and after years of predominantly weak results, the Serb has been experiencing a revival of sorts recently, with this spring’s Miami semifinals and Charleston final, and today’s triumph in the grinder against fifth seed Li Na is another reminder that the former world No.1’s abilities should not be given up on. In two hours and 39 minutes, the unseeded Jankovic eliminated Li 7-6(2) 7-5. After resisting Li’s initial 2-0 lead, then her recovery from 5-3 down and the saving of five set points, Jankovic won the first set in the tiebreak, while in the second set she did not let the victory slip away when Li recovered from the brink of defeat, saved a match point and leveled to 5-5. Jankovic broke her serve again and closed the match in the following game.

Jankovic’s quarterfinal opponent will be Simona Halep who relentlessly keeps progressing – after victories over Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova and fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska, the Romanian upset seed No.13 Roberta Vinci 6-4 6-2.

In other Thursday’s third-round matches, top seed Serena Williams raced past seed No.14 Dominika Cibulkova 6-0 6-1 and will next play Carla Suárez Navarro, who beat Lourdes Domínguez Lino 6-2 6-3. Ninth seed Samantha Stosur snapped a 0-4 head-to-head record against eighth seed Petra Kvitova, defeating her 7-5 2-6 6-1, and next up for her is third seed Victoria Azarenka, whose opponent Ayumi Morita retired at 6-1 2-0. Sara Errani's opponent Maria Kirilenko also retired, at 6-3 2-0, and in the quarterfinals the seventh-seeded Italian will play second seed Maria Sharapova, who was better than Sloane Stephens 6-2 6-1. (photo by Francesca Moscatelli)

The week the big WTA names of her caliber are competing in Rome, where a victory in just the first round gets you close to $13,000 and 70 ranking points, Kleybanova is playing in Landisville where the champion earns mere 18 ranking points and the prize of $1,440, and not to mention that there are no perks such as ball kids, line judges, chair umpires and electronic scoreboard. But the 23-year-old Kleybanova, who was ranked 26th the moment the disease struck, has her goal in her mind: to maintain her eligibility for a protected ranking.

Having won three qualifying rounds, Kleybanova is now in the main draw, awaiting the match with unranked American Jacqueline Wu.
(source: The New York Times, photo: © Neal Trousdale)

On the opening of the Internazionali BNL d'Italia Laura Robson made the story of the day by taking out Venus Williams and setting up a meeting with Serena Williams in the second round, while another famous up-and-comer took the spotlight on Day 2 in the first round - Bojana Jovanovski upset tenth seed Caroline Wozniacki 2-6 6-4 7-6(5) for her second career Top 10 victory and will next face fellow Serb Jelena Jankovic, who was her first Top 10 victim back in 2010.

Since reaching the second week of the 2013 Australian Open, her best Grand Slam result, the 48th-ranked Jovanovski lost eight straight matches, struggled with injuries and even dramatic personal life (her ex-boyfriend jumped off a bridge in Belgrade), but today against Wozniacki she recovered from losing the first set, being a break down in the second at 3-4, 0-4 in the third set, then 4-5 in the third when Wozniacki was serving for the match and then again recovered from 2-5 in the tiebreak to battle to the win in two hours and 57 minutes.

The highest seed to fall on Tuesday was No.4 Agnieszka Radwanska. The Pole lost handily to world No.64 Simona Halep 6-7(2) 6-1 6-2 in the second round, while Svetlana Kuznetsova was the Romanian's victim in the first round 6-1 6-1. Agnieszka's lower-ranked sister Urszula advanced to the second round with an upset of seed No.15 Ana Ivanovic, 6-3 2-6 6-2. (source: WTA Tour, photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Serena Williams seems to be too intimidating for Maria Sharapova

The top-seeded Williams raced through the first four games, then Sharapova somehow managed to hold her serve in a game that lasted about as long as the sum of the first four, but her opponent quickly closed the deal, finishing the set in just 32 minutes. The seed No.2 Sharapova offered resistance in the second set, breaking Serena's serve in the opening game and holding her own for a 2-0 lead, but she gave away that advantage by allowing her serve to be broken to love by double faulting on 0-40 in the sixth game of the set. In the tenth game Serena again broke Sharapova to love and won the match and 643,000 EUR in prize money.

Before the final, Serena beat Yulia Putintseva in the first round, Lourdes Dominguez Lino in the second, seed No.13 Maria Kirilenko in the third, against Anabel Medina Garrigues in the quarterfinals Serena was bageled in a set, which was only the second time in a decade that such a thing happened to her (although we have to point out that the world No.63 Medina Garrigues holds the largest number of claycourt titles of any active WTA player – 10), and in the semis Serena's victim was seventh seed Sara Errani.

This Sunday's win has ensured that Serena holds on to her No.1 ranking, which could've been taken by Sharapova had she won the title. Moreover, Serena defended her last year's Madrid title, which was played on blue clay at the time, and lifted the 50th winner's trophy in her career. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

We're having Top 2 WTA players in the final of the Mutua Madrid Open and the No.1 ranking is on the line – if Maria Sharapova wins, she will take the prestigious position from Serena Williams. Moreover, Sharapova is playing the 50th final of her career, in the previous 49 her record was 29-20, while Serena is looking for her 50th title in her 66th final.

A day after surviving Anabel Medina Garrigues in the quarterfinals, Serena won a tight 7-5 6-2 two-setter against Sara Errani, who was twice a break up in the first set, and will now try to become the tenth player in history to win 50 WTA titles, and the only active player to do so. In the following semifinal, Sharapova secured a 6-4 6-3 victory over Ana Ivanovic by winning a close first set and overcoming Ivanovic's initial 2-0 lead in the second set. It's not just any win for the Russian, it's her 500th career win and only seven other active players have achieved the feat, including of course Serena Williams, who leads Sharapova 12-2 in the head-to-head stats, not having lost to her since 2004. (photos: © Neal Trousdale)

Top seed and defending champion Serena Williams recovered from a second-set bagel against clay veteran Anabel Medina Garrigues in the quarterfinals of the Mutua Madrid Open, only her seventh career loss of a set at love, and in the third set she rebounded from 2-4 and later from two points from defeat at 4-5 15-30 to win 6-3 0-6 7-5. Williams' opponent in the semis will be seventh seed and claycourt expert Sara Errani, who beat Ekaterina Makarova 6-4 6-3. Never in their four previous meetings had Errani defeated Williams.

Second seed Maria Sharapova is also through to the semifinals, with a 6-2 6-4 victory over Kaia Kanepi, but if she wants to get the number one ranking she'll have to hang in there and see Serena leave one round earlier than her. Seed No.16 Ana Ivanovic was the last to move into the final four, taking out sixth seed Angelique Kerber 6-3 6-1 in a match that lasted just 57 minutes, thus reinforcing her recent 7-5 7-5 win over the higher ranked German in the Fed Cup. The semifinal of Sharapova and Ivanovic will be a rematch of the last month's indoor clay meeting in the Stuttgart final eight, when Ivanovic lost a three-set marathon and Sharapova went all the way to the title and the Porsche. Sharapova has won the last five matches against Ivanovic, dating back to 2007. (photos: © Neal Trousdale)

The speculations about the love story between WTA world No.2 Maria Sharapova and ATP world No.28 Grigor Dimitrov started in the end of November 2012 when the Russian beauty was shopping in Milan and her Bulgarian colleague appeared in the footage of the stroll through the fashion city, but now, five months later, the couple finally decided to come out and confirm their relationship publicly by kissing and hugging in the streets of Madrid on Wednesday night, which of course the paparazzi diligently recorded.

The confirmation of the love match between Sharapova and Dimitrov comes about a year after Sharapova's end of engagement to basketball player Sasha Vujacic, whose fiancée she became in October 2010, while the split that happened in late spring was confirmed in the end of August 2012.

After upsetting top seed Novak Djokovic on Tuesday at the Mutua Madrid Open for his biggest career victory, the 21-year-old Dimitrov said that he was inspired by a "few words" from his girlfriend (we now know it's the 26-year-old Maria Sharapova) that he’ll "remember definitely for the rest of my life." As for Sharapova's progress at the Premier-level tournament, today she made the quarterfinals by beating Sabine Lisicki 6-2 7-5 in the third round and has a chance to reclaim the top ranking if she manages to go one round further than world No.1 Serena Williams.

There's another juicy detail about the new tennis couple: the word is out that Sharapova gave Dimitrov the blue Porsche 911 Carrera 4s she won in Stuttgart two weeks ago. (source: Daily Mail)