Top-seeded
Amelie Mauresmo breezed past No. 5 seed
Nadia Petrova 6-3, 6-1 Tuesday night to reach the semifinals for the second consecutive year at NASDAQ-100 Open.
In the semifinals Mauresmo will face No. 12 seed
Svetlana Kuznetsova, with the resurgent former US Open champion winning a lopsided match over No. 21-seeded Japanese
Ai Sugiyama 6-0, 7-6(4).
"I still hope to get much better than this, but definitely I am very happy," Kuznetsova said. "I worked very hard pre-season, and I been working a lot on myself and on my game like last tournaments. I am pretty happy with my improvement. It seems like black line in my life for the moment, it's over. It looks much lighter, everything. I am more happy on the court."
Competing in quarterfinal action Wednesday in Miami are (22)
Tatiana Golovin vs.
Jie Zheng, and an all-Russian showdown in (4)
Maria Sharapova vs. (10)
Anastasia Myskina.