MIAMI, 2 April 2005 — Former world No. 1 Kim Clijsters crushed top seed Amelie Mauresmo 6-1, 6-0 on Thursday to reach the final of the Nasdaq-100 Open, where she will meet Maria Sharapova who earlier beat Venus Williams 6-4, 6-3.
Men’s No. 1 seed Roger Federer maintained his unbeaten record with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Tim Henman to set up a semifinal meeting with Andre Agassi, who demolished his fellow American Taylor Dent 7-5, 6-0.
Unseeded Clijsters whipped past Mauresmo in little more than an hour to extend her winning streak to 13 matches and stay on course for back-to-back titles following her victory at Indian Wells 13 days ago.
Clijsters has lost just one match since returning to the tour in February after missing most of the 2004 season with a wrist injury.
“Things have clicked into place really quickly,” said Clijsters. “In Indian Wells it was like a dream and now it’s even more amazing. I’m enjoying myself and everything is in place at the moment.”
Looking sprightly and fleet-footed, Clijsters signalled her intent by breaking Mauresmo’s serve early in the first set and from then on was never troubled by the Frenchwoman.
“She just played unbelievable tennis,” said Mauresmo. “She’s in huge confidence, so everything that she goes for is in.”
Clijsters said: “I played a really good match against her. Today I played the important points well and it feels really good to be doing that again.”
Swiss Federer eased past Briton Henman to book his place in the last four with his 30th win of the year and his 20th consecutive victory since losing to Marat Safin at the Australian Open in January.
“I had a bad record against Tim, but now I look at the draw and I’m really not scared of anybody,” said the world No. 1.
Agassi, who has won the title in Miami six times, took just 70 minutes to deal with Dent.
After Agassi took the first set with a late break of serve, Dent’s body and spirit both proved vulnerable in the second.
At 0-4 down Dent received treatment on an ankle injury and thereafter put up little resistance.
“This has been a place I’ve always loved playing,” said Agassi, who is married to Steffi Graf. “It’s the only tournament that I’ve won more times than my wife so that’s a pretty big accomplishment in my house.”
Federer said he was looking forward to taking on Agassi for the chance to play in the final against David Ferrer or Rafael Nadal, who meet in the other, all-Spanish, semifinal.
“He’s one of the last legends in tennis and you want to be able to play him as much as you can,” said Federer, who has won six of their nine career meetings.
Wimbledon champion Sharapova will have to be at her best to beat Clijsters in today’s final but on Thursday was just happy to enjoy the moment.
“I’m in the final and I feel fantastic,” said the 17-year-old.
She said she gained a lot of confidence after edging out the tightest of first sets when errors began to creep into Williams’s game as she served at 4-5 down.
The Russian went from strength to strength in the second set, breaking Williams to go 2-0 up and staying ahead until she served for match at 5-3.
Only then did the she begin to show any signs of self-doubt.
In a long and dramatic ninth game, Sharapova was forced to save her first breakpoints of the match as Williams fought to stay in the tournament.
Eventually, after an hour and 20 minutes, Sharapova watched the American’s final shot sail long on her third match-point and fell to her knees in relief and triumph.
“I think we both fought to the end,” said Sharapova. “So many points were so big.
“I’m a big competitor and I love to fight. Everyone is hungry and everyone wants to beat me so I know that I have to be that way if I want to win.”
Meantime, Sharapova has 10 days to decide whether to join the Russian Fed Cup team, the country’s tennis chief said yesterday.
“She received a firm offer to join our squad for a first round tie against Italy on April 23-24,” Shamil Tarpishchev, who is also Russia’s Fed Cup captain, told Reuters in an interview.
Tarpishchev had just returned from Miami where he spent several days trying to persuade the 17-year-old and her father Yuri to commit themselves to Russia’s cause.
“It’s basically very simply. She (Sharapova) must say yes or no before April 10 when I will announce the team,” he said. “So we’ll just wait and see what happens and take it from there.”
