MONTREAL (AP)—Kim Clijsters rallied for a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory over American Bethanie Mattek-Sands at the Rogers Cup on Wednesday.

After dropping the first set, the fifth-seeded Clijsters was down 4-1 in the second and had to fight off two break points against the aggressive Mattek-Sands, a qualifer ranked 101st in the world.

Mattek-Sands continued to attack the net in the third and got a service break, only to give it back to the 27-year-old Clijsters, a two-time U.S. Open champion who is gunning for a second straight title after winning her 38th career tournament last week in Cincinnati.

Clijsters capped the match with a perfect passing with Mattek-Sands at the net waiting for a volley.

Clijsters was in her first match at Uniprix Stadium since injuring a wrist in a fall during a match with Canadian Stephanie Dubois in 2006, a setback that contributed to her decision the following year to take a more-than two-year break from the tour.

She advanced to a third-round meeting with Kaia Kanepi of Estonia, a 7-5, 6-2 winner over Sybille Bammer of Austria.

Second-seeded Caroline Wozniacki edged Patty Schnyder 7-5, 7-5 in a match played mostly from the baseline. Wozniacki improved her career record to 4-1 against the 52nd-ranked Schnyder.

Wozniacki will face Flavia Pennetta of Italy, who defeated Russian Alisa Kleybanova 6-3, 6-3.

Seventh-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland defeated Vania King of the United States 6-0, 6-3 and fourth-seeded Russian Elena Dementieva got past Klara Zakopalova of the Czech Republic 6-2, 6-4.

Dinara Safina, the 2008 winner in Montreal, won an all-Russian match against Nadia Petrova 7-5, 4-6, 6-4. The former No. 1 is playing her fourth tournament since a lower back injury sidelined her in November.

“It’s the first time in a long time I could play the three-set match against a top player and physically I could feel fine,” Safina said. “This was a nice test for me, for my back, for everything.”

Kimiko Date Krumm withdrew with a strained left quadriceps, allowing 17th-seeded Marion Bartoli of France to advance. Bartoli will play Czech qualifier Iveta Benesova on Thursday.

The Japanese veteran withdrew from the second-round match after reaching the main draw as the “lucky loser” from the qualifying tournament and defeating Monica Niculescu in the first round.

The 39-year-old Date Krumm returned in 2008 after a 12-year retirement, winning last year’s Korea Open to become the second-oldest player after Billie Jean King to win an official event.

Wozniacki, a winner two weeks ago in her hometown of Copenhagen, passed Jelena Jankovic this week for the No. 2 spot in the rankings.

MONTREAL (AP)—Top-seeded Jelena Jankovic of Serbia lost her second-round matchup with qualifier Iveta Benesova of the Czech Republic 7-6 (3), 6-3 on Tuesday night.

Jankovic has played only four matches in three tournaments this month after missing two weeks with an ankle injury she says is completely recovered.

“I didn’t really feel like a top-five player out there,” said Jankovic, who has never won the Rogers Cup. “My game hasn’t been at the top level for the last couple of tournaments.”

The U.S. Open is the only Grand Slam where Jankovic has reached the final, losing to Serena Williams in 2008.

Jankovic is hoping she can find her game in the short time that remains before the start of the final Grand Slam of the year on Aug. 30.

“I really wanted to play matches here, and at the last tournament, but I didn’t do that and now I haven’t played many matches before the U.S. Open,” Jankovic said. “So I’ll just try my best over there, and hopefully I’ll be better.”

Benesova, ranked No. 75 in the world, won her sixth match in the past five days, winning three on the weekend in qualifying plus her first-round singles and doubles matches on Monday.

“I think it was good for me because I haven’t had a very good season this year,” said Benesova, who improved her 2010 singles record to 17-18. “It was good for my confidence.”

It was the biggest win of Benesova’s 12-year pro career, her previous best being a victory over then-No. 5 Mary Pierce in the second round of the 2006 Australian Open.

“This is definitely the biggest victory of my career, I’m just very excited,” Benesova said. “It was a great match for me.”

Benesova will face the winner of the second-round match between France’s Marion Bartoli and Japan’s Kimiko Date-Krumm.

Jankovic got off to a strong start, winning her first two service games at love and breaking Benesova to go up 5-3 in the first with a chance to serve out the set. But Benesova broke right back and forced a tiebreaker, winning the final three points to take it 7-3.

The players exchanged breaks in the second set until Benesova broke Jankovic again to go ahead 5-3 and served out the match, standing on the baseline with both hands on her head as the crowd roared approval.

No. 17 seed Marion Bartoli earned an easy 6-1, 6-0 win in 69 minutes.

The eighth-seeded Vera Zvonareva made quick work of Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova, winning their second-round match 6-2, 6-1 in 67 minutes.

No. 11 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova needed three sets to defeat fellow Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 7-5, 4-6, 6-1.

From 2006 to 2009 Kuznetsova was a perennial top-five player, reaching a career-high No. 2 in 2007, but she arrived in Montreal ranked 16th in the world.

Kuznetsova said she feels she is slowly getting back to that top-five form.

“Before, I was more aggressive, I was going for the balls, and I think I have that back,” Kuznetsova said. “I think my game is better. I feel like I’m back, I’m back in my game and it all depends on me.”

No. 10 seed Victoria Azarenka of Belarus beat Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine 6-1, 6-1, 15th seed Flavia Pennetta of Italy ousted Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova 6-0, 7-5, and 18th seed Nadia Petrova of Russia was stretched to the limit 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 by Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic.

Date-Krumm, the 39-year-old who received entry into the main draw only after Maria Sharapova pulled out Sunday night with a heel injury, won her first-round match 7-6 (4), 4-6, 6-2 over Romanian qualifier Monica Niculescu.

After three qualifiers advanced to the second round on Monday, two more advanced Tuesday with victories by Ekaterina Makarova of Russia and American Bethanie Mattek-Sands.

Russia’s Maria Kirilenko had a 6-0, 6-3 victory over Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova, who made the final here in 2008.

Tennis and fashion go hand in hand like Maria Sharapova and grunting, so it’s only natural that Canadian designers would call upon some tennis players to show off their wares at a fashion show prior to this week’s Rogers Cup.

At the Player Party before the event, eight competitors in the Montreal tournament strutted their stuff down the runway wearing clothes deigned by Canadians, all for the benefit of Community Tennis, an organization which promotes tennis in schools. The players had their hair and makeup professionally done and seemed to enjoy the process of getting glammed up.

"We’re girls and we like clothes," said top-ranked Canadian Alexsandra Wozniak. "It’s so much fun being a diva. It’s also fun seeing what everybody else is wearing."

Some more photos after the jump. Above is Lucie Safarova and Andrea Hlavackova.

Jelena Jankovic

Elena Dementieva

Caroline Wozniacki and Agnieszka Radwanska

Andrea Hlavackova

Lucy Coin 

MASON, Ohio (AP)—Kim Clijsters is turning Cincinnati into her kind of town.

The defending U.S. Open champion reached the semifinals at the Cincinnati Open on Friday, beating Italy’s Flavia Pennetta 7-6 (6), 6-4 in oppressive afternoon heat. The fourth-seeded Clijsters will face Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic.

No. 10 Maria Sharapova also reached the semifinals, beating France’s Marion Bartoli 6-1, 6-4 in the evening match. She’ll play fellow Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Clijsters is the highest remaining seed. Five of the top eight were eliminated on Thursday. Serena and Venus Williams dropped out with injuries before the tournament began.
 
That left center court to Clijsters, who seems to like the place.

Clijsters returned to tennis in Cincinnati last year, reaching the quarterfinals after a two-year break to start a family and get recharged. The 27-year-old Belgian reached the quarterfinals in Cincinnati and found her touch. A few weeks later, she won the U.S. Open.

This year, she took a break from tournament play after Wimbledon and arrived in town hoping to use Cincinnati as a springboard again.

So far, the hard courts have been agreeable.

“There’s moments when it’s good, moments when it’s not good,” she said. “Each match has gone better. That’s what I’m looking for.”

Clijsters passed her toughest test of the week, making a few more shots than Pennetta in a match close throughout. She hit a service winner to go up 7-6 in the tiebreaker, and Pennetta sailed a forehand wide to settle the sweaty first set.

Clijsters went to her seat and squirted cold water over her hair, trying to get a little relief. On-court temperatures have registered 120 degrees the past couple of days, with oppressive humidity that made it tough to breathe after long points.

The heat had a lot to do with setting up her semifinal opponent.

Down 5-1 in the opening set of her quarterfinal match against Yanina Wickmayer, Pavlyuchenkova started to think about doing better in the second set. Turned out the first one was far from over.

Taking advantage of a heat-drained opponent, the 19-year-old Russian rallied for a 7-5, 3-6, 6-1 win that extended one of the best stretches of her career.

“It was really tough conditions today,” Pavlyuchenkova said.

Her opponent used so much energy getting ahead 5-1 in the first set that she began feeling the strain. Her legs got a little shaky. Her game fell apart.

“I started off really well in the first set, got really tired after that,” Wickmayer said. “And she came back and put up a great fight.”

Pavlyuchenkova is coming off a title at Istanbul. Asked if she has the energy to extend her streak of nine straight wins, she said, “I don’t know. We’ll see tomorrow.”

Sharapova will be rested. Bartoli had only seven points and eight unforced errors while falling behind 5-0 in the first set. Sharapova has dropped only one set in four matches this week.

“I was playing at a very high level the whole match,” Sharapova said. “Many things were going really well for me.”

The last remaining qualifier melted away at the $2 million Western & Southern Financial Group Women’s Open.

Akgul Amanmuradova pulled off the biggest upset of the week, knocking off top-seeded Jelena Jankovic in two sets on Thursday. It was the biggest career win for the 26-year-old Amanmuradova, who is ranked No. 114 and had never beaten a Top 10 player.

A day later, she never had a chance against Ivanovic, losing 6-1, 6-3 in only 56 minutes.

“I was really tired from the whole week and all the matches,” Amanmuradova said. “So obviously my serve speed broke down a little bit, which makes a lot of difference on this level.”

MASON, Ohio (AP)—Kim Clijsters is turning Cincinnati into her kind of town.

The defending U.S. Open champion reached the semifinals at the Cincinnati Open on Friday, beating Italy’s Flavia Pennetta 7-6 (6), 6-4 in oppressive afternoon heat. The fourth-seeded Clijsters will face Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic.

No. 10 Maria Sharapova also reached the semifinals, beating France’s Marion Bartoli 6-1, 6-4 in the evening match. She’ll play fellow Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Clijsters is the highest remaining seed. Five of the top eight were eliminated on Thursday. Serena and Venus Williams dropped out with injuries before the tournament began.
 
That left center court to Clijsters, who seems to like the place.

Clijsters returned to tennis in Cincinnati last year, reaching the quarterfinals after a two-year break to start a family and get recharged. The 27-year-old Belgian reached the quarterfinals in Cincinnati and found her touch. A few weeks later, she won the U.S. Open.

This year, she took a break from tournament play after Wimbledon and arrived in town hoping to use Cincinnati as a springboard again.

So far, the hard courts have been agreeable.

“There’s moments when it’s good, moments when it’s not good,” she said. “Each match has gone better. That’s what I’m looking for.”

Clijsters passed her toughest test of the week, making a few more shots than Pennetta in a match close throughout. She hit a service winner to go up 7-6 in the tiebreaker, and Pennetta sailed a forehand wide to settle the sweaty first set.

Clijsters went to her seat and squirted cold water over her hair, trying to get a little relief. On-court temperatures have registered 120 degrees the past couple of days, with oppressive humidity that made it tough to breathe after long points.

The heat had a lot to do with setting up her semifinal opponent.

Down 5-1 in the opening set of her quarterfinal match against Yanina Wickmayer, Pavlyuchenkova started to think about doing better in the second set. Turned out the first one was far from over.

Taking advantage of a heat-drained opponent, the 19-year-old Russian rallied for a 7-5, 3-6, 6-1 win that extended one of the best stretches of her career.

“It was really tough conditions today,” Pavlyuchenkova said.

Her opponent used so much energy getting ahead 5-1 in the first set that she began feeling the strain. Her legs got a little shaky. Her game fell apart.

“I started off really well in the first set, got really tired after that,” Wickmayer said. “And she came back and put up a great fight.”

Pavlyuchenkova is coming off a title at Istanbul. Asked if she has the energy to extend her streak of nine straight wins, she said, “I don’t know. We’ll see tomorrow.”

Sharapova will be rested. Bartoli had only seven points and eight unforced errors while falling behind 5-0 in the first set. Sharapova has dropped only one set in four matches this week.

“I was playing at a very high level the whole match,” Sharapova said. “Many things were going really well for me.”

The last remaining qualifier melted away at the $2 million Western & Southern Financial Group Women’s Open.

Akgul Amanmuradova pulled off the biggest upset of the week, knocking off top-seeded Jelena Jankovic in two sets on Thursday. It was the biggest career win for the 26-year-old Amanmuradova, who is ranked No. 114 and had never beaten a Top 10 player.

A day later, she never had a chance against Ivanovic, losing 6-1, 6-3 in only 56 minutes.

“I was really tired from the whole week and all the matches,” Amanmuradova said. “So obviously my serve speed broke down a little bit, which makes a lot of difference on this level.”

MASON, Ohio (AP)—Kim Clijsters is turning Cincinnati into her kind of town.

The defending U.S. Open champion reached the semifinals at the Cincinnati Open on Friday, beating Italy’s Flavia Pennetta 7-6 (6), 6-4 in oppressive afternoon heat. The fourth-seeded Clijsters will face Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic.

Clijsters is the highest remaining seed. Five of the top eight were eliminated on Thursday. Serena and Venus Williams dropped out with injuries before the tournament began.

That left center court to Clijsters, who seems to like the place.

Clijsters returned to tennis in Cincinnati last year, reaching the quarterfinals after a two-year break to start a family and get recharged. The 27-year-old Belgian reached the quarterfinals in Cincinnati and found her touch. A few weeks later, she won the U.S. Open.

This year, she took a break from tournament play after Wimbledon and arrived in town hoping to use Cincinnati as a springboard again.

So far, the hard courts have been agreeable.

Clijsters passed her toughest test of the week, making a few more shots than Pennetta in a match close throughout. She hit a service winner to go up 7-6 in the tiebreaker, and Pennetta sailed a forehand wide to settle the sweaty first set.

Clijsters went to her seat and squirted cold water over her hair, trying to get a little relief. On-court temperatures have registered 120 degrees the past couple of days, with oppressive humidity that made it tough to breathe after long points.

Pennetta broke her in the second set to go up 3-2, which only seemed to make Clijsters more determined. She broke the Italian right back and served out the one-hour, 48-minute match on a court that felt more like a griddle.

The heat had a lot to do with how the day’s first match turned out.

Down 5-1 in the opening set, Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova started to think about doing better in the second set. Turned out the first one was far from over.

Taking advantage of a heat-drained opponent, the 19-year-old Russian rallied for a 7-5, 3-6, 6-1 win over Yanina Wickmayer, extending one of the best stretches of her career.

“It was really tough conditions today,” Pavlyuchenkova said.

Her opponent used so much energy getting ahead 5-1 in the first set that she began feeling the strain. Her legs got a little shaky. Her game fell apart.

“I started off really well in the first set, got really tired after that,” Wickmayer said. “And she came back and put up a great fight.”

Pavlyuchenkova is coming off a title at Istanbul. Asked if she has the energy to extend her streak of nine straight wins, she said, “I don’t know. We’ll see tomorrow.”

The last remaining qualifier also melted away at the $2 million Western & Southern Financial Group Women’s Open.

Akgul Amanmuradova pulled off the biggest upset of the week, knocking off top-seeded Jelena Jankovic in two sets on Thursday. It was the biggest career win for the 26-year-old Amanmuradova, who is ranked No. 114 and had never beaten a Top 10 player.

A day later, she never had a chance against Ivanovic, losing 6-1, 6-3 in only 56 minutes.

“I was really tired from the whole week and all the matches,” Amanmuradova said. “So obviously my serve speed broke down a little bit, which makes a lot of difference on this level.”

Akgul Amanmuradova has defeated Jelena Jankovic 7-6 (3), 6-4 in the third round of Cincinnati, derailing an all-Serbian quarterfinal between Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic.

Ivanovic has now won three matches in a row for the first time since Rome, defeating Elena Vesnina 6-0, 6-3 in their third-round match.

MASON, Ohio (AP)—Top-seeded Jelena Jankovic and second-seeded Caroline Wozniacki were knocked out in third-round upsets at the Cincinnati Women’s Open on Thursday.

Uzbek qualifier Akgul Amanmuradova used a decisive serve advantage to upset the second-ranked Jankovic 7-6 (2), 6-4, shortly after Marion Bartoli of France won eight straight games on her way to beating the third-ranked Wozniacki 6-4, 6-1.

Just one of the top nine seeds—No. 4 Kim Clijsters—and five of the 16 remained alive going into the quarterfinals of the $2 million Western & Southern Financial Group Women’s Open.
 
Sixth-seeded Vera Zvonareva of Russia fell to Flavia Pennetta of Italy 6-4, 6-3, while seventh-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland was eliminated by Maria Sharapova 6-2, 6-3, and eighth-seeded Li Na of China lost to Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium 2-6, 6-2, 7-6 (4).

Also, Shahar Peer of Israel fell to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia 5-7, 6-4, 6-4.

The seventh-ranked Clijsters easily advanced, downing No. 132 Christina McHale 6-1, 6-1. McHale, the last remaining American, only had two breakpoint opportunities and didn’t convert either while Clijsters went 5 for 10.

Sharapova, who is scheduled to face Bartoli in Friday’s evening match, believes the rash of upsets can be traced to the balance in women’s tennis.

“I think it just speaks a lot about the depth of the game right now,” said the Russian, who is playing in the tournament for the first time. “I think the depth of the game is a lot deeper than it was, say, a few years ago, where maybe in the first few rounds you could have gotten a few easy matches, easy scorelines. I think now, from the get-go, you really have to be ready for the first round.

“You’re facing really tough opponents, and some of them are not seeded or dropped in the rankings, but to be honest, at the end of the day, that doesn’t really matter,” she said. “You still have to go out there and face them.”

Former No. 1 Ana Ivanovic continued her impressive run with a 6-0, 6-3 win over No. 49 Elena Vesnina. The 62nd-ranked Ivanovic has beaten three higher-ranked opponents to reach the quarterfinals.

The 114th-ranked Amanmuradova, the last qualifier to reach the quarterfinals in 2007, had 12 aces with no double faults, keeping the tournament’s defending champion on her heels.

“I didn’t expect to go that far,” said Amanmuradova, who is scheduled to meet Ivanovic in the quarterfinals. “I knew Cincinnati was very strong, being a Premier event for the second year. Last year, I lost in the first round. I was just hoping to pass through the qualifier and see what happens. Today was one of my best games ever. I’d never beaten a top 10 player.

“Serving a lot of aces helped me save my energy,” she said.

Jankovic played just two matches one week after losing in the first round at San Diego in her first match since injuring her left ankle during the second round of a tournament in Slovenia in mid-July.

“The key to today’s match was I really didn’t return well and her serves were really accurate,” Jankovic said. “I didn’t really have many chances. When I had the chances, I didn’t really take them. When I was able to hit the return, I would make mistakes. So, unfortunately, I didn’t do what I was supposed to do. She was a better player today.”

Wozniacki had won six straight matches and was leading 4-3 in the first set before Bartoli got going and won the last three games of that set and five more to take control.

Momentum changed when Bartoli won a challenge on break point in the eighth game.

“To break her, especially to get this challenging call when the ball was out and the line judge called it in and actually it was out on the break point, it was kind of a huge turning point,” said Bartoli, whose quarterfinal opponent is Sharapova. “I felt like, after that, I served really well, and it helped me a lot to stay on top today.”

Wozniacki questioned the chair umpire about the timing of Bartoli’s challenge.

“I think it was a late challenge,” she said. “It was a pretty important point, and I felt like she hit the ball and she was playing it, and saw that she hit it out and then challenged.”