Top-seeded Camerin, Mirza Losers at Tashkent

The tournament's top seed, Maria Elena Camerin, was handed a crushing defeat by unseeded Belarussian phenom Victoria Azarenka, losing 60 61, in just 55 minutes. Azarenka, who has enjoyed victories so far this year against Nicole Vaidisova, Jelena Jankovic and Anastasia Myskina, pounded serves and groundstrokes to perfection in what was the pair's first ever encounter on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.

"She played unbelievable," said Camerin, who jokingly raised her arms into the air after finally getting on the board in the third-to-last game of the match.

"I had a perfect game," said Azarenka. "After she held serve she got confident, so I had to be ready to stay there."

Although she was able to put up more of a fight, No.3 seed Sania Mirza was also sent packing, dropping a streaky 64 46 60 decision to an in-form No.6 seed Olga Poutchkova. Mirza showed some of the fighting spirit that has taken her as high as No.31 in the world, clawing her way back from a 4-0, 40-0 hole in the second set to even it up; but the Indian star then displayed some of the inconsistency that has pushed her outside of the Top 50 this year, losing six games in a row.

"Sometimes you don't get used to the conditions, and then you don't win," Mirza said. "The balls were flying, and I just didn't get to feel them on my racquet. I haven't been feeling the ball in any of my matches here."

Poutchkova, who was ranked outside of the Top 100 just one month ago at the US Open, has skyrocketed all the way up to No.58 in the last four weeks, after reaching the quarterfinals of Bali, the final at Kolkata and another quarterfinal at Guangzhou. Now, she is the highest seed left here, as of the semifinal stage.

Next up for the Russian teen will be Uzbek star Iroda Tulyaganova, who powered past Kateryna Bondarenko, 61 62. Tulyaganova, a wild card into this event, was ranked as high as No.16 in the world just a few years back before her momentum was curtailed by various injury and off-court struggles. But in her first Tour event of the season two weeks ago she made a shock run to the Tier III Kolkata semis, and now finds herself in the final four for the second time in two tries.

"It was easier than I expected," Tulyaganova said of her win over Bondarenko. "She was making too many mistakes and couldn't put the ball in court. But I'm glad that I was able to keep my concentration."

Poutchkova and Tulyaganova clash for the second time in two weeks; they played in the aforementioned Kolkata tournament's semifinals, where the Russian teen won, 64 64, but not without a second set struggle, where the Uzbek fought back from 4-2 down and had a chance to go up 5-4 before losing the last two games.

Next up for Azarenka will be China's Sun Tiantian, who beat No.8-seeded Russian Anastassia Rodionova, 61 63. Both Azarenka and Sun are into their career-first Tour singles semifinals.

The doubles tournament came to an abbreviated ending on Friday. Azarenka and Tatiana Poutchek won the day's first semifinal, 76(6) 61, over Stephanie Dubois and Alla Kudryavtseva. Camerin and Emmanuelle Gagliardi were handed a walkover from Chan Chin-Wei and Tamarine Tanasugarn in Friday's second semifinal, after Tanasugarn suffered a left ankle sprain. Finally, Azarenka and Poutchek were also given a walkover after Camerin pulled out of the event with her own ankle sprain, to the right ankle, suffered in her singles warm-up.

Azarenka and Poutchek were playing together for the second time, having won an ITF Circuit event together last November, at a $75,000 event in Tucson, Arizona. The Tashkent title was Azarenka's first of any kind on the Tour; it was Poutchek's third, having also won the doubles in the Uzbek capital in 2002 and 2003.
-- WTA