Despite Venus' misguided advice, Serena Williams beat Lucie Safarova 6-3, 3-6, 7-6.
Czech second seed Karolina Pliskova avenged her Australian Open quarter-final loss to Mirjana Lucic-Baroni with a 6-3, 6-4 win over the 26th-seeded Croatian to secure a spot in the Miami Open semi-finals on Tuesday.
Top seed Roger Federer will challenge for a ninth Halle Open title after reaching the Wimbledon warm-up event final with a 6-4 7-6(5) victory over rising Russian talent Karen Khachanov on Saturday.
The third seed, who lost to Lucie Safarova, was richer by $12,000.
Serena Williams is skipping practice on the eve of the French Open final as the World No 1 battles with illness, organisers said on Friday.
World No 1 Serena Williams cruised into the quarter-finals of the Rogers Cup with a 7-5, 6-4 win over Lucie Safarova on Thursday but the Montreal tournament lost two of her potential title rivals when Maria Sharapova and Petra Kvitova were knocked out.
Doctors operated on all five fingers of her left hand and she will not be able to exert pressure on the injured hand for three months to let repairs to tendons heal, Karel Tejkal, spokesman for the Czech Fed Cup team, said.
Images from the Australian Open women's final on Saturday.
Sania Mirza and her partner Bethanie Mattek Sands progressed to the third round of the women's doubles event with a three-set win over American pair of Lauren Davis and Megan Moulton-Levy in Paris.
Sania Mirza and her American doubles partner, Bethanie Mattek-Sands, made an early exit from the Madrid Open after losing their second round match in straight sets to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Lucie Safarova.
The fifth seed Indo-American pair had to work hard for a 7-6(3), 4-6, 10-4 victory over the Slovakian-Spanish combo of Daniela Hantuchova-Anabel Medina Garrigues.
American Bethanie Mattek-Sands, whose agonising on-court injury shocked Wimbledon, says she will need surgery and faces being sidelined from the game.
Roberta Vinci sent Italy into the Fed Cup final for the fifth time in eight years with a 6-2, 6-7, 6-3 victory over CzechRepublic's Lucie Safarova in Palermo on Monday.
World number one Karolina Pliskova needed just 46 minutes to defeat American Jennifer Brady 6-1, 6-0 at Arthur Ashe Stadium and punch her ticket to the quarter-finals at the US Open on Monday.
Mattek-Sands was playing Romania's Sorana Cirstea on outside Court 17 when she appeared to slip as she approached the net at the beginning of the third set then collapsed awkwardly to the grass.
World number eight Caroline Wozniacki pulled out of her first match at the Sydney International with a wrist injury on Monday.
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova overpowered Lucie Safarova 6-2, 6-4 in the second reverse singles to pull Russia level with the Czech Republic at 2-2 in their Fed Cup final on Sunday.
Indian ace Sania Mirza and Switzerland's Martina Hingis entered the semi-finals of the WTA Finals after beating Taiwanese combination of Hao-Ching Chan and Yung Jan Chan 7-6 (12-10) 7-5 in Singapore on Friday. The Indo-Swiss pair will be pitted against the winner of the match between top seeds Caroline Garcia-Kristina Mladenovic and Bethanie Mattek-Sands- Lucie Safarova. It was a hard-fought two sets where both the teams held their service game till they reached 5 games all. It was in the 11th game of the first set that Sania and Hingis were broken. But the joy of their opponents was shortlived as they broke back in the very next game to take the first set into a tie-breaker.
A battle-tested Serena Williams booked her spot in the semi-finals of the Toronto Cup on Friday after overcoming a sluggish start to grind out a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 win over Czech Lucie Safarova.
Kim Clijsters surged into the quarters-finals of the Eastbourne grasscourt tournament on Wednesday with a 6-1, 6-0 thrashing of Lucie Safarova.
Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin were forced to draw on their vast experience to avoid being eliminated from the Brisbane International on Thursday. The two Belgians, both back on the professional circuit after retiring from the sport, scraped through their quarter-finals to remain on course for a possible showdown in Saturday's final.
Images from all the action on Day 4 of the Australian Open in Melbourne on Thursday
French Open champion Stanislas Wawrinka has moved up five places to number four in the official ATP world rankings released on Monday.
A summary of the matches from Day 9 at the French Open.
Alisa Kleybanova won a riveting three hour, 16 minute 6-7, 7-6, 6-2 slugfest over fifth-seeded Serb Jelena Jankovic and her gritty performance earned her a loud ovation from an appreciative crowd and a Saturday date with Maria Sharapova.
World number two Serena Williams brushed aside qualifier Lucie Safarova 6-3, 6-2 on Friday to reach the semi-finals of the Toronto Cup and set up a mouth-watering clash with Elena Dementieva.
World number one Dinara Safina took a first step towards a second consecutive claycourt title by battling to a 6-3, 7-6 victory over Li Na at the Madrid Open on Wednesday.
Rohan Bopanna gained three places to be world number 21, and is now country's top ranked player in the ATP doubles chart.
Maria Sharapova remained on course for consecutive Madrid Open titles when she recovered from dropping the second set to beat Caroline Wozniacki 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 on Thursday and book a spot in the semi-finals.
India's tennis star Sania Mirza retained her numero uno status in women's doubles for the second consecutive year, despite failing to defend the WTA Finals Singapore title with partner Martina Hingis. Defending champions Sania and Hingis had lost to Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina in the semi-finals of the WTA Finals Singapore on Saturday.
It proved a happy Halloween for Czech Petra Kvitova after she made the most of coming back from the dead to set up a title-match showdown with Agnieszka Radwanksa at the WTA Finals.
Russians Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina won the Wimbledon women's doubles title for the first time, while Poland's Lukasz Kubot and Brazil's Marcelo Melo won the Wimbledon men's doubles crown.
Justine Henin is likely to be favourite to win the Australian Open but Serena said she believes she could retain the trophy.
Lucie Safarova ensured that Mauresmo's prayers went unanswered by humbling her 6-3, 7-6 in the third round.
As the world No 2 women's player focuses on the next big Grand Slam, Wimbledon, Rediff.com takes readers through her glamorous life via her instagram posts.
Top seed Agnieszka Radwanska's title defence at the Sydney International lasted just 92 minutes when she was dumped out of the second round by Bethanie Mattek-Sands on Tuesday.
World number one Roger Federer moved closer to a Sony Ericsson hat-trick on Monday, easing into the fourth round of the Masters Series event with 7-5 6-3 win over Spain's Nicolas Almagro.
China's Na Li kept the Asian interest alive as she beat ninth seed Dinara Safina 6-2, 6-2.
Mauresmo stayed on course to defend her Australian Open title with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Czech Eva Birnerova in the third round on Friday.
Pliskova, a finalist at last year's US Open who reached the semi-finals at Indian Wells last week, relied on her booming groundstrokes and strong returning to dispatch her American opponent in 59 minutes.
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