Maria Sharapova continued her mastery of Romania’s Simona Halep with a high quality 6-4 6-4 victory filled with bruising baseline rallies to edge closer to a last four berth at the WTA Finals yesterday.

The Russian world number four topped the Red Group at the eight-woman end-of-season finals with her second win and next faces US Open champion Flavia Pennetta, who said she would retire after the tournament, with a semi-final spot on the line.

The 33-year-old Italian had earlier kept alive her WTA Finals bid with a flurry of backhand winners as she downed a strapped up Agnieszka Radwanska 7-6 6-4 to leave the Pole bottom of the standings with two defeats.

It was Pennetta’s first win in the group – she was blown away by top seed Halep 6-0 6-3 in her opener on Sunday – with her backhand proving a particularly devastating weapon at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.

Sharapova’s win over the Romanian means all four players in the group still hold hopes of grabbing one of two semi-final spots available and Pennetta said she had been impressed by the Russian, who has been hit with injury problems since Wimbledon in summer.

“She has this adrenaline because she was out for three or four months, something like that,” the Italian told reporters.

“When you come in the tennis court after so long you are with a lot of energy. It’s going to be tough for sure.”

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.