Tennis: Newsmakers do talking on court

Top seed Flavia Pennetta of Italy took just one hour to beat Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova in the quarter-finals yesterday. Photo / Sarah Ivey

There will be at least one Italian and one of the tournament's two controversial figures in tomorrow's Auckland women's final.

Three of the top four seeds have progressed to today's ASB Classic semifinals today, with fourth seeded Italian Francesca Schiavone booking a showdown with countrywoman and top seed Flavia Pennetta with a convincing demolition of Alize Cornet last night.

Schiavone put on an awesome display of power tennis to blitz her French opponent, but whether she has the touch to challenge Pennetta remains to be seen.

After a relatively straight-forward procession, Schiavone needed seven match points to finally subdue Cornet. The simple smash she missed on the sixth of them was indicative of the flaw in her game that the more polished Pennetta will surely try to exploit.

That said, Schiavone holds a 4-1 lead in head-to-head meetings between the Fed Cup team-mates.

Third seed Yanina Wickmayer, who made the field only thanks to a wildcard after a suspension for contravening drug testing rules was lifted pending an appeal, meets Israeli Shahar Peer in today's first semifinal.

Peer has been the subject of daily taunts from a small but noisy band of anti-Israeli protesters that has gathered outside the stadium. Those scenes will hardly be welcomed by tournament organisers but so far the Peer protest story has made more waves than much of the action on court.

After coasting to a 6-0 first set yesterday, Peer surprisingly dropped the second to Russian Maria Kirilenko 3-6 before rediscovering her touch to take the third 6-1.

That was as close as any of the day quarter-finals got, with Pennetta and Wickmayer posting routine straight-forward straight-sets victories.

Pennetta disposed of Slovaian Dominika Cibulkova 6-1, 6-2 in just 61minutes. The classy 12th-ranked Italian was in awesome touch against the young Slovak, describing her display of precision tennis as "perfect".

"I didn't make many mistakes at all," Pennetta said.

"I was aggressive and my serve was amazing. I was very happy because [Cibulkova] is always very tough. She makes you play so many balls and it is not easy to make many winners, but [yesterday] everything was perfect."

Wickmayer stopped short of claiming perfection but the Belgian was equally as thrilled with her dominant 6-2, 6-2 victory over Japanese veteran Kimiko Date Krumm.

"I feel more confident on the court every day. At the start of the season everyone is trying to find their rhythm so it is really nice to have this rhythm in the first week of the year," she said.

At 16 Wickmayer is Belgium's top-ranked player but she admitted her efforts in New Zealand were going largely unnoticed at home, where all interest is centred on the Sydney tournament featuring comeback queens Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin.

Wickmayer should receive a sterner test from Peer, who appears to have been galvanised by the daily protests at her presence.

Wickmayer's brush with controversy happened pre-tournament, when she was banned for failing to notify Belgian drug testers of her location, contravening Wada's "whereabouts" rule.

That ban was lifted pending an appeal, a decision Peer agreed with. The two are friends, with Peer revealing she sent Wickmayer a message of support when she was originally banned.

"I think it was a shame that she did get a ban and I'm happy she could come back," Peer said.