BEIJING, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- World No. 1 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus advanced to the semi-final at the China Open on Friday while second seed Maria Sharapova took an overwhelming victory after Angelique Kerber of Germany retired.
Top seed Belarusian Azarenka continued her dominant performance by sweeping past Romina Oprandi of Switzerland 6-2, 6-0. Next for Azarenka will be either ninth seed Marion Bartoli or Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain.
Oprandi, ranked 69th in the world, won in straight sets against Azarenka in 2007. But 23-year-old Belarusian, who has yet to drop a set in the tournament, only used 55 minutes to seal this one-side match.
"Well, I wouldn' t say it was easy, because even though the score is like that, sometimes it doesn' t really say the whole story about the whole match." Azarenka said.
In the opening stage of the first set, Azarenka encountered a little resistance from the Swiss but bounced back into the contest by pushing the scores to 5-2 then rounding off the opening set.
"I think she' s so uNPRedictable. It feels to me that sometimes she doesn' t even know where she' s going to go that it makes it even harder for your opponent to read."
"I' m just glad that after that little slack of the game I could adjust and really get on top of her." Azarenka added.
Sharapova, number two in the WTA rankings behind Azarenka, coasted past the sixth ranked German star Kerber 6-0, 3-0 as the fifth seed pulled off the match due to injury.
Although Sharapova had been in total control of the match, she didn' t think it is a battle without resistance.
"We had really long rallies. I would say 50% of the games I felt like were really long and went to deuce and back and forth." said 25-year-old Sharapova.
The semi-final opponent for Sharapova is the host player Li Na, who dispatched Agnieszka Radwanska 6-2, 6-4 in the later match.
"Li has proven why she's a Grand Slam champion with her results, and she has been top 10 in the world for a long time. There is no reason why it shouldn' t be a good match tomorrow." Sharapova added.