Maria Sharapova rediscovered the devastatingly accurate form that has made her the most impressive player of the clay court season when she routed Kaia Kanepi 6-2, 6-3 in their quarter-final.With that victory, no.2 seed Sharapova has entered her third Roland Garros semi-final and for the first time in her career, she is looking like the player who is favoured to win it. The three-time Grand Slam title winner will face the Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, who survived qualifier Yaroslava Shvedova 3-6, 6-2, 6-4. It will be the third time in the last four Grand Slams that the two have met.In her fourth round victory over Klara Zakopalova, Sharapova had trouble serving and keeping her groundstrokes accurate, but that was not the case against Kanepi, as she served accurately and with pace and direction. She owned the Estonian with her down-the-line game from the baseline, and constantly had the powerful Kanepi on her heels. As she has done all spring, she returned ferociously, breaking Kanepi seven times and winning 74 percent of Kanepi's second serve points."She played very well," Kanepi said afterwards. "She was attacking all the time, and I didn't have much time to do my shots. She puts the pressure on when she returns. It's not very comfortable to serve."While neither woman was very accurate while sliding out wide, Sharapova did manage 21 winners and did a good job of keeping the points short, requiring just 74 minutes for the victory.“There were a few things I wanted to improve from the other matches," Sharapova said. "I just thought I played very defensively against an opponent that likes that type of game. Today I did want to be aggressive and I did want to try and step in and move forward and get the first good hit on the ball."The 25-year-old Russian has won 17 of her 18 matches on clay this year, by far the most impressive mark of her career. She has become substantially stronger over the years. During the off-season and in between the hard-court and clay season, she worked with trainer Yutaka Nakamura to improve her footwork. Since she isn’t always slipping around when defending, she is able to get her feet set into more offensive positions."I think it's just about improving movement in general on any surface that you're playing," she said. "Obviously there are a few different movements on clay with the sliding and the recovering and getting back into the point which you work on, but I think it's just a general sense of movement."Meantime Kvitova – who has had a rough stretch battling illness and injuries since she reached the 2012 Australian Open semis – played an up and down contest against the ambitious Shvedova, but hung tough after she went down a break in the third set. Not the most patient of players, the big lefthander constantly went for her shots and it paid off, as in the last two sets she found the range with her hooking serve and massive forehand. Shvedova fought gamely, but said she was super-tired and Kvitova was simply too strong for her, nailing 38 winners to 14 from the Kazak."I expected it will be tough match and it was actually," Kvitova said. "She start well and I was very nervous from the beginning. The first set I did easy mistakes. Then I knew that I had to change my game and I have to be the aggressive one and going for the points. The games were very close. I'm happy that I won the big points. I couldn't give up."Not only has the Czech reached her first Roland Garros semi-final, she has won five matches in a row for the first time since January. She feels that her form is coming back."It's good to know that I can play and I hope that it will be not only five. But I know Maria is a tough opponent. I lost in the [last two] matches [against her]. She's playing very well. She has a great season right now, and she's very tough opponent.”
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