French Open runner-up Samantha Stosur of Australia was ousted from the 700,000-dollar WTA San Diego Open on Friday, losing a quarter-final 6-4, 6-3 to Italian fifth seed Flavia Pennetta. Second seed Stosur joined Serbian top seed Jelena Jankovic and Russian third seed Vera Zvonareva on the scrapheap at the 700,000-dollar hardcourt tournament, a tuneup for the US Open that begins on August 30.
Pennetta fired seven aces and blasted 19 winners past Stosur to book a semi-final berth against Svetlana Kuznetsova, who downed US teenager CoCo Vandeweghe 7-5, 6-2. "It's a good feeling because she's one of the best players," Pennetta said. "She has had an unbelievable year. It's never easy to beat this kind of player."
Kuznetsova, who reached her first semi-final of 2010, said eventually her experience won out over the US youngster, who upset Zvonareva on Thursday night. "I think I won by experience," Kuznetsova said. "I wasn't playing my best game. I think she was so confident (from Thursday). It took me time to break her up." In a battle of unseeded players, Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia beat Russian Alisa Kleybanova 2-6, 6-4, 6-3. In the semi-finals Hantuchova will face fourth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland, who won the last nine games in a 6-2, 6-0 rout of seventh-seeded Israeli Shahar Peer.
While Stosur is one of the tour's top servers, she didn't muster an ace and had five double faults. "She makes a lot of balls and runs everything down," Stosur said. "She really makes you work for every point you win. Sometimes that can be a little bit frustrating."
Vandeweghe, who hails from the San Diego area, took a 5-2 lead in the first set against Kuznetsova, riding the momentum of her victory the night before. "I thought early on I was kind of beating her with my pace and the heaviness of the ball," she said.