Bartoli and Wozniak to play in Stanford final

What can you say about Serena Williams' knee, other than "there it goes again"? Williams was obviously hampered by her bad knee when she played her semifinal match against Aleksandra Wozniak. Credit to Wozniak, however, who looked as though she was ready for a totally healthy Williams, and who hit with accuracy and self-assurance. Wozniak took the match, 6-2, 3-1 when Williams retired.

More interesting was the match between Marion Bartoli and Ai Sugiyama. In five tries, Bartoli had never beaten Sugiyama, a former top 10 player who can still show why she was ranked so high for so long. Sugiyama went up an early break in the opening set, but after that, Bartoli turned on that switch I wish she could turn on more often. With penetrating double-handed groundstrokes, beautiful volleying, and some solid serving, she dictated play for most of the match, winning 6-3, 6-3.

As I recently wrote, Bartoli has changed her service motion yet again, after having significantly changed it earlier in the season. It's still odd-looking, however. Of course, commentators love to deconstruct Bartoli more than any other player because everything about her is so unorthodox. Last night, Pam Shriver and Mary Joe Fernandez were concerned that Bartoli--who had very serious wrist tendonitis a few months ago and almost missed Wimbledon--kept executing a wrist action with her racquet while she was waiting to return serve, or even waiting to return a ball in the air. In the post-match interview, they asked her about it, and she said that her two-handed play can cause her wrists to lock, so she does that to keep them loose. So there.