Halep, Bencic advance at Rogers Cup in Toronto

Here is a slideshow of hot photos of Serena Williams in action at the 2015 Rogers Cup this week in Toronto. Williams is the rare competitor who seems to be able to find another gear when needed and simply overpower the competition.

The 33-year-old American was usually up to the challenge, eventually wrapping things up in a tidy 78 minutes.

Though she said she was unimpressed with her match, saying she still has “a tremendous amount of improvement to do off the ground and everywhere else”, Williams took just over one hour to cruise through the match and earn her place in the quarters, where she meet Roberta Vinci.

Awaiting Williams in the quarterfinals will be Roberta Vinci, who ended the run of WTA Rising Star Daria Gavrilova in the first match of the day on center court, also in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3. She’ll next face either fifth-seeded Ana Ivanovic of Serbia or Slovenian qualifier Polona Hercog in the quarter-finals.

Serena Williams had just nailed a backhand victor to break Andrea Petkovic and surge to a 5-3 lead in the opening set of her third-round match at the Rogers Cup, but watching her body language you’d think she’d just lost the point. I just felt off. Just gotta be more positive out there again.

It was Halep’s 300th career victory. “I was fighting until the end”.

“I stayed there very focused and I said that I can do it with them”.

Despite being the defending Roger Cup champion, Radwanska feels like the underdog in Friday’s quarterfinal match against Halep. Fichman, from Toronto, and Zhao, from Richmond Hill, Ont., were ahead 5-2 when the Russian team retired.

The Pole came from a break down in the final set to dismiss the French woman Alizé Cornet 6-2, 4-6, 6-4. Fourth-seeded Caroline Garcia of France and Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia defeated Romanians Irina-Camelia Begu and Raluca Olaru 6-3, 6-2.

Halep will face 15th-seeded Sara Errani of Italy in the semifinals.