After holding serve for 2-0 in the first set, Petra Kvitova must have been feeling good. She’d broken to start the match and then consolidated, and she was controlling the rallies with her opponent, Caroline Wozniacki, with ease. So rather than limply toss the ball to a nearby ball kid who would send it across the net, Kvitova took the responsibility herself and let a long overhand toss fly. She didn’t throw it hard, but she threw it with the loose grace of the natural athlete, of someone who loves to use her strength. Maybe it was the fact that she was throwing left-handed, but the motion reminded me of another natural athlete from the Czech Republic, Martina Navratilova.

Does that sound like a ridiculous comparison? It is—so far. Navratilova, besides the umpteen titles, was a much more agile and graceful mover (has anyone ever moved forward on a tennis court like Martina?). Kvitova, by comparison, can struggle when she’s pushed and stretched, and she has trouble getting her body out of the way and in perfect position when she’s surprised and forced to improvise—finesse will never be her forte. But she does have something that very few players can match, and what may make the Navratilova comparison less ridiculous someday, is the ability, particularly with her forehand, to hit the ball right on the money from virtually any position. More than once against Wozniacki today, Kvitova seemed either in the wrong spot or too rushed to possibly hit a winner, and then hit a winner anyway.

The final score was 6-4, 6-2, but the story of the day was better told by a TV graphic that showed Kvitova hitting nearly 50 percent of her ground strokes from inside the baseline, compared to 17 percent for Wozniacki. Sooner or later, that kind of positioning advantage is going to tell. Kvitova, as always, hit her share of shank backhands—typically a brilliant winner from that side is followed by a second, wayward attempt at the same shot. It has seemed to me in the past that she simply doesn’t have a second gear rally shot from that side, but I did notice her pulling back a little on her backhand in the second set. Instead of rifling it outright, she used it set to up her forehand. It's a small sign, but a good sign. Judging by the second-set score, Kvitova should be able to see that she doesn’t have to go for broke, doesn't have to be hit-or-miss, to be effective.

Today she was mostly hit, with not a lot of miss. It wasn’t a total blowout; Kvitova was forced to come up with a lot of good shots at 30-30 and 40-30. But when she does come up with them, nobody can stop her. At 2-1, 30-30 in the first set, she hit a colossal backhand cross-court winner and followed it with an even sharper angle on her serve into the deuce court for an ace. I don’t care what your ranking is, the first tactic against Kvitova for any player is to hope she’s not at her best. There’s not a whole lot you can do if she is.

That said, this wasn’t Wozniacki’s day, either. She complained of dizziness at the end of the first set and was checked by a doctor. And she was obviously weary by the end of the match; she was coming off two three-set matches in two days. This is the downside of a round-robin. As intense as it can be to see the Top 8 squaring off in a compressed schedule, that schedule inevitably leaves some players more tired or less motivated than their opponents as the week progresses. Today a weary Wozniacki got a rested Kvitova, and it may have cost her a spot in the semifinals.

As for the Czech, she marches toward the weekend with no sets lost. She’s moving forward with the dispatch of a countrywoman of hers that we know well.

—Stephen Tignor

Victoria Azarenka’s blond braid bounced against her back as if keeping the beat of her fast feet, tap-dancing behind the baseline. Playing as if propelled by music she heard in her head, Azarenka got in a smooth groove early and left Li Na looking as displaced as a woman seeking a seat when the song stops during a game of musical chairs.

The fourth-ranked Belarusian barely made a misstep in a brilliant, 6-2, 6-2 beatdown to extend her winning streak to seven matches and storm into Saturday’s semifinals of the WTA Championships in Istanbul. Azarenka has swept U.S. Open champion Samantha Stosur and reigning Roland Garros winner Li in succession, and has won 16 straight sets since falling to Agnieszka Radwanska in the Tokyo semifinals in September.

Intent on taking the first strike in rallies, Azarenka served at an eye-popping 89 percent in the first set, giving Li only three looks at her second serve during the opener. She did not face a break point in the match, while Li confronted 11 such obstacles.

"Li Na is such a good returner so I had to try to take that away from her," Azarenka—who built 5-1 leads in both first and second sets—told Tennis Channel’s Katrina Adams.

Azarenka’s fast service games had a cumulative, oppressive effect on her opponent, who held a 1-0 lead when she drew an easy forehand sitter near the net but fired a forehand three feet long in a mind-numbing error that would make most hackers cringe in horror. If Li had made the shot it would have given her double break point; the miss signaled a crack in confidence, as Azarenka ran off five consecutive games to seize command, sealing the opening set in 43 minutes.

Even when Li did manage to hold it was a taxing task. Two of her first three service holds spanned more than seven minutes, as she began to wear the wide-eyed expression of someone who couldn't find a safe spot on the court to prevent Azarenka from ripping a reply. This wasn’t bash and smash tennis. Azarenka, who is not as quick around the court as Li, anticipated well, defended brilliantly and played both sharp angles and deep drives with equal effectiveness.

Li’s husband and coach, Jiang Shan, urged her to engage Azarenka in more forehand-to-forehand rallies—a pattern Li had exploited in winning four of their prior five matches, including straight-sets wins at the Australian Open and Roland Garros. But Azarenka had an answer for everything as Li, who made 19 errors in beating Maria Sharapova yesterday, finished with 32 errors today.

Li made tennis history as the first Chinese singles player to master a major, but Li's streaks are as glaring as Azarenka's shrieks. The erratic Li won 11 consecutive matches to open the season in reaching the Australian Open final before suffering a five-match losing streak. Since her inspired run to the Roland Garros title in June, Li has managed to win back-t0-back matches just once, but still has a shot to reach the semifinals if she beats Stosur tomorrow.

—Richard Pagliaro

The unmistakable new shoe smell—like polyurethane perfume mixed with mistletoe—and an aggressive black-and-green color scheme greeted us as we opened a nondescript grey box containing the new Asics Gel-Resolution 4 shoes.

The Gel-Resolution 4 (MSRP: $120) will hit retail stores on February 1, 2012. We took the new shoes out for a few play-test previews on hard courts last week and found the Gel-Resolution 4 a foot-pleasing partner. (We'll post a complete, formal review in the coming weeks after our wear testers and TENNIS shoe adviser Dr. David Sharnoff put the shoes through its paces).

Recently, I've been pained by plantar fasciitis in my right foot. Consequently, I haven't been hitting as much as I did during the summer—in recent weeks I've been limited to playing doubles and play-testing racquets indoors on Har-Tru—so I was anxious to see how my foot would hold up to hard-court hitting and the new shoes. Since the U.S. Open ended, I've played wearing either the Prince T-22 or the New Balance 851, which is an extremely light, low-to-the ground shoe. Putting on the Gel-Resolution 4, my feet immediately felt higher off the ground than they did wearing the 851s. The initial sensation was a bit like stepping off a beach barefoot into a pair of shoes: instant elevation. Feeling a bit higher off the court did not create any stability issues. These shoes are very stable, I learned almost immediately.

Playing doubles against Dev, an opponent who hits drop shots as often as a young Novak Djokovic used to ball bounce between serves (this guy will actually drop shot you during warm-ups) forced frequent and sudden changes of direction. Moving forward to retrieve the droppers and running laterally for wide shots is where the shoe's support system and performance qualities were most evident.

The midsole and outsole are well balanced; the Gel-Resolution 4 is so comfortably cushioned I felt the shoes cradled—rather than constricted—my feet. I felt no pain during or after a couple of two-hour sessions on court. The mesh tongue and perforations on the upper enhance ventilation; I wore it on a couple of cool autumn nights outdoors, so I'm interested to assess the breathability inside.

The Gel-Resolution 3 was the highest-rated shoe we tested in 2011 and Asics says it has made only minimal changes to the upper (the forefoot shape is more streamlined, the brand says) in an effort to continue its appeal to its core audience.

Asics bills the men's Gel-Resolution 4 as weighing 13.3 oz., and though the 11 1/2 size I wore weighs 15.4 oz., the shoe does not feel bulky at all, which may be due to both the comfortable fit and the light-weight, breathable upper. Some wear testers told us they felt the toe box was a bit snug on the Gel-Resolution 3, but that wasn't an issue for me with the Gel-Resolution 4, which fit like a slipper and didn't feel stiff out of the box.

Overall, I was pleased with the shoe's performance, comfort and the stability from all areas of the court and plan to wear it indoors on Har-Tru this weekend to see how it performs on clay. Most importantly, I played and walked away pain free.

Asics will offer the men's version in black and green with silver accents (the black shoelaces even have a green tip), as well as a more traditional white with blue trim. The women's Gel-Resolution 4 will be available in all white as well as the blue-and-pink cosmetic pictured at right.

It’s amazing what a few people in the stands will do, isn’t it? Fill the seats up with civilized, attentive fans, and you’ve got yourself a tournament worthy of being called a season-ending championship, whatever may happen on the court. Or at least that’s the way it's felt for the first two days—has it really been only two days? we’ve seen  lot of tennis—of the WTA’s eight-woman year-ender in Istanbul.

Has a new tennis hotbed been born? It may have something to do with the ticket prices, which are about as much as you’d pay for a movie in the United States. But however those 21,000 people got there on Tuesday and Wednesday, the crowds in the arena alone have made this the most enjoyable WTA Championships to watch on TV that I can remember. The one slip-up has been the bright green court color, which makes it harder than it should be to see the ball on television. The reason for it—bright green is the corporate color of tournament sponsor Oriflame, a Swedish cosmetics company—only makes it worse.

With a squint here or there, I’ve been seeing the ball fine, and seeing most of the action so far—you can find four of my Racquet Reactions here and a piece on the tournament I did for ESPN.com here. Now for some other thoughts about it that haven’t made it to print, or screen.

*****

I wrote earlier this year about the circular, never-get-anywhere nature of tennis news. In this sport, the news is rarely new; it just happens to get talked about again at each big event and then forgotten until the next one, when we realize that nothing was done about it the last time around. Istanbul has been no different. Two eternal issues in particular have made headlines—or, if not actual headlines, at least they've made it to the Ticker on Tennis.com.

The first and lesser of the two has been some chatter about the WTA wanting to hold a dual season-ending championship with the men. It’s certainly been chatted about before; the last WTA chief, Larry Scott, quit after trying and failing to bring the two tours under one roof. It's also an odd time to be talking about changes. The men’s World Tour Finals has been a major success in London the last two years, and it appears that the women, after wandering the earth for a decade, have found a home in Istanbul.

The more prominent, if no less tired, issue is grunting. It’s back again primarily because world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki has made her strongest statement against it yet, accusing some women of using their moans and shrieks to distract opponents. More important long-term, though, is the fact that WTA head Stacey Allaster has acknowledged the problem and begun talking about rooting it out at its source, in the juniors. I’ll reiterate my own opinion here: Typically a grunting player will bother me for a game or two, and then I won’t notice it anymore. The non-grunting women don’t seem to like it, but they do get on with playing the game anyway and don’t use it as an excuse for losing afterward. I also don’t believe that grunting players intentionally do it to distract; on the other hand, I also think they could, with a little practice, stop doing it and not hurt their games.

Nevertheless, something needs to be done, simply because so many fans are put off by it. Rooting it out in the juniors, while the right long-term solution, isn’t going to change anything in the next two or three years. Can decibels be measured during matches and fines assessed afterward? That would get the job done considerably faster.

There you go. I eagerly await having this discussion again in Melbourne in January. And in Paris in May. And in London in . . .

*****

One perennial WTA issue hasn’t been raised this time around: coaching. Has the tour's long-running “experiment” with it been accepted as part of the sport? That’s fine with me if it has.

What’s interesting, if we are going to accept coaching, are the variety of effects it can have on a match. Petra Kvitova was broken in her first two service games by Vera Zvonareva on Tuesday. She called her coach out and didn’t lose serve again until late in the second set. At the opposite end of that spectrum was the case of Li Na yesterday. She called on her husband-coach after being broken, but, smart man, he refused. Looking, and playing, a little ticked off, Li smacked two disdainful return winners and broke back. There are many ways to coach tennis, it seems.

Sam Stosur’s coach doesn’t believe in coming on court, because he can’t do that at the Grand Slams. His approach seemed to have been vindicated when Stosur won the U.S. Open. Except that the Wimbledon winner this year was Kvitova. She has obviously benefited from on-court advice here, but had no trouble going without it on Centre Court.

The most famous or notorious on-court coacher is Wozniacki’s father, Piotr, who conducts a long and agitated soliloquy in front of his daughter in the middle of each set. Without understanding a word of what he’s saying, it seems to me that he’s there to make her feel his agitated competitive urgency when she walks back on court. In some ways, it works—Wozniacki is a gritty competitor, and she gutted out a three-set win in her first match. In other ways, though, it must help wear her down. That’s how she looked by the end of her second match, which she lost, and how she's looked for much of the second half of the season.

*****

One final issue that's typically raised in women’s tennis is the inability of many of them to hold serve consistently. This was the case in the match between Maria Sharapova and Li Na, who essentially broke their way to a first-set tiebreaker yesterday. It’s a given in the sport that numerous breaks of serve in a row are an indication of “bad tennis.” And Sharapova and Li did play their share of that. But they also made it difficult on each other by playing so well in their return games. Sharapova drilled her returns at Li’s feet, while Li roped hers into the corners. Those shots were as impressive and entertaining—and as “good”—and any service aces and service holds would have been.

*****

With that, I see that the third day from Istanbul is about to begin. I’ll be back to Racquet React after the second and third matches.

by Bobby Chintapalli, Contributing Writer

With money, ranking points and vacation looming and with crowds watching (finally), the ladies play on in Istanbul. As Day 3 kicks off, here’s a look at today’s matches, as well as a few numbers on and words from those playing.

Matches

1) WHITE GROUP: Victoria Azarenka vs. Li Na → Li leads 4-1

2) RED GROUP: Caroline Wozniacki vs. Petra Kvitova → Wozniacki leads 3-1

3) RED GROUP: Vera Zvonareva vs. Agnieszka Radwanska → Radwanska leads 3-2

The current standings are here, and they’ll be updated throughout the day.

Qualification

The following update is directly from today's WTA match notes:

WHITE GROUP: Victoria Azarenka will advance to the semifinals if she defeats Li Na. The other qualifier will be determined on Friday.

RED GROUP: Petra Kvitova will advance to the semifinals if she defeats Caroline Wozniacki.

RED GROUP: Caroline Wozniacki will advance to the semifinals if she defeats Petra Kvitova in straight sets.

RED GROUP: The loser of the Agnieszka Radwanska vs. Vera Zvonareva match will be eliminated.

Numbers

1

Caroline Wozniacki’s year-end ranking for the second year in a row, as confirmed yesterday. By finishing at the top for consecutive seasons, she joins “a revered group of seven WTA legends” (as the WTA press release put it). All the big names are there, except perhaps Serena Williams. (Serena has been year-end No. 1 twice—she’s the only other active player who has—but not consecutively.) Wozniacki must step it up at the Slams, but if her critics get too upset about her Slamless reign, they should also blame the players who’ve been unable to pry Wozniacki from her throne. Again.

2

The number of players who’ll be in next weekend’s Fed Cup final in Moscow between Russia and the Czech Republic. They are Petra Kvitova and Vera Zvonareva. The official ITF team nominations were announced yesterday, and naturally, both made the cut. Their preparation for one last event, a team event that puts a different kind of pressure on them, could make them work harder here to hone their games for the battle ahead.

4

The number of doubles finals Victoria Azarenka reached this year, all with Maria Kirilenko. They won at Madrid and Stanford, lost at Australian Open and Toronto. The two barely missed the final spot in the doubles event here; they were in fifth place in the points race (and not just because it rhymes).

5

The number of players competing today who’ve won at least one match here. That leaves one player who hasn’t—Agnieszka Radwanska, who did little but win the rest of the month.

6

The number of wins Agnieszka Radwanska has against Top 5 opponents this year. That's more than any WTA player except Sam Stosur, who earned her sixth win here.

15

The number of matches Petra Kvitova won this year at hard/indoor tournaments. She lost none.

34

Petra Kvitova’s year-end ranking last year. It’s the lowest among the 10 players who made it to Istanbul. That includes the alternates: Marion Bartoli was ranked No. 17, and Andrea Petkovic was ranked No. 32.

74

Caroline Wozniacki’s career win percentage in singles matches. It’s the highest among those playing today. Her win percentage this year is, at 80.5 percent, better than everyone in Istanbul. (Kvitova’s is a close second with 80.3.)

1.3 million

The amount, in dollars, that Vera Zvonareva had earned at the WTA Championships before this year’s event started. That’s second only to Maria Sharapova, who had earned $2 million. Qualifiers Li Na and Petra Kvitova had earned nothing; this year marks their first appearance here.

Words

—Caroline Wozniacki, asked whether she was tired after playing two days in a row, especially when she’d be also playing today: “No, I like to play long matches. I like to give the crowd a little bit for their money. (Smiling.)”

—An interesting question posed to Li Na: “Maria obviously kind of took Thomas Hogstedt from you. You have now beaten her twice. Does that give you extra satisfaction?”

—You know it’s a Vera Zvonareva transcript when you spot these lines: “I’m always confident in myself. I always believe in myself.”

—Likely half of Victoria Azarenka’s presser focused on grunting. It started with this question: “I know this has come up before, but Caroline Wozniacki has said a few things about the noise that people like yourself and Maria make. She says that some players do it deliberately, and she wishes they would stop. Has the tour mentioned this to you, anyone from seniority spoken to you about this issue?”

—Asked what she’d do if an opponent complained specifically about her and presumably mid-match, Victoria Azarenka struck a defiant note: “I would just say, Mind your own business, I guess. I hope you can beat me. That’s it. (Smiling.)”

Former top-ranked tennis player Marat Safin says he’s running for the Russian parliament. The 31-year-old Safin is up for election to the State Duma on Dec. 4. He could join other Russian sports stars, including gold medal-winning gymnast Svetlana Khorkina, in the lower house of the parliament. Speaking at an ATP Champions Tour event in Chengdu, Safin says he has “a lot to bring and a lot of…