By Lauren Lynch             Photo Credit: Elsa/ Getty Images

(August 19, 2011) Pushing for her place in the finals two years in a row, Maria  Sharapova pushed past Toronto-finalist Samantha Stosur to face World No. 2 Vera Zvonareva in the Western & Southern Open semifinals.

The Russian beat the tenth-seeded Australian 6-3, 6-2 in 72 minutes with a stronger service game improving her record against her opponent to 9-0.

The fourth-seed did hit the same amount of aces to double-faults at three a-piece. Improving on her return game, she won 54 percent of the total return-points at 28 out of 52 while winning 32  of 47 total service points.

She only forfeited two opportunities for Stosur to break her serve with one slip but converted five of eight serve-attack attempts.

Sharapova's game is improving to having some more weapons even though it still has a lot of errors.

“I did many good things today that caused her a lot of trouble,” Sharapova told the Associated Press. “I didn’t give her much time to do the things she likes to do.”

Next on the court was the highest-seed-left, Zvonareva, who had a more trouble taking the win. She defeated Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova 6-3, 7-6(6) in an hour, 54 minutes in the Cincinnati quarterfinals.

Similar to her upcoming-semifinal opponent, she had just as many double-faults as aces at five for both. She only served eight more first serves to second serves but won more on her first.

She attacked Hantuchova's second serve and won 77 percent on that serve while converting five of eleven break points.

The top-Russian player struggled in the second set where she got broken, for the first time in the match, three times out of nine attempts.

Zvonareva improved her winning record against the World No. 23 to 5-2 and win/loss record to 45-15.

In the semifinals, it will be Sharapova who hold the edge. She has defeated Zvonareva in six of their nine meetings and won their last two meetings on the hard court. The two have not played since 2009 in Toronto.