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Eight of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour's brightest talents will compete for spots in the final four of the Family Circle Cup on Quarterfinal Friday at the $1-million tournament. Leading the way will be current world No.3 and one of the hottest players of the season so far, Elena Dementieva.
Dementieva, who won back-to-back titles in the first two weeks of the year in Auckland and Sydney, is looking almost unstoppable as she chases her third of 2009 right here in Charleston, after winning her first two rounds handily over American players: 6-0, 6-2 over Julie Ditty and 6-1, 6-1 over Varvara Lepchenko. The Russian could have a much tougher time as she faces No.7 seed Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia in the quarterfinals, a player who has beaten her in one of their three previous meetings; Cibulkova also has five Top 10 wins to her name, all last year (Venus Williams, Anna Chakvetadze, Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Dementieva).
Dementieva and Cibulkova will take Stadium court at 1pm local time or later, should the first match go past that time.
The remaining three quarterfinals will all take Stadium court as well, with No.5 seed Caroline Wozniacki against No.13 seed Virginie Razzano following right after Dementieva and Cibulkova, then No.16 seed Sabine Lisicki against unseeded Russian Elena Vesnina. No.6 seed Marion Bartoli will face unseeded Hungarian Melinda Czink in the night match, not before 7pm local time.
Dementieva is the only Top 4 seed to make the quarterfinals, with No.2 seed Venus Williams, No.3 seed Vera Zvonareva and No.4 seed Nadia Petrova all falling on Thursday. Williams, a former champion here and one of the hottest players in the world over the last six months, was the biggest surprise, losing a tight two-setter to the big-serving, big-hitting Lisicki.
The last two doubles quarterfinals will also take Stadium court, including No.1 seeds Kveta Peschke and Lisa Raymond facing the unseeded team of Chan Chin-Wei of Chinese Taipei and Belarusian Olga Govortsova.
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