Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams are not the only ones to visit fashion shows. Apparently, Justine Henin, too, became interested in such events as she was seen sitting in the front row at Milan Fashion Week.
Justine attended the Giorgio Armani Spring 2008 ready-to-wear show and looked as good as in Le Soir magazine. (via Tennis Served Fresh)
Top seed Venus Williams overcame a string of double faults to beat fourth seed Maria Kirilenko of Russia 6-3 1-6 6-4 and win the Hansol Korea Open Tennis Championships on Sunday.
Williams reached the final without losing a set, but she had to work to improve to 3-0 in her career against Kirilenko.
The Wimbledon champion finished with 11 double-faults for the match. After taking the first set, she had five double-faults and was broken three times in the second set. However, she broke Kirilenko in the seventh game of the third set, before going on to claim the title. (source: BBC)
Ana Ivanovic became the fourth player to qualify for the Sony Ericsson Championships, joining Justine Henin, Jelena Jankovic, and Svetlana Kuznetsova. Ivanovic qualified for the season-ending event on Friday, after a 6-1 6-2 victory over Tatiana Golovin in Luxembourg. The win provided the Serb with enough points to enter the prestigious tournament in Madrid, Spain, which will be held November 6-11. Eight singles players will be eligible to compete (so, there are four more slots to be filled), in addition to four doubles teams. (via The Ana Ivanovic website)
In a latest doodle at her website, Maria Sharapova wrote about what has been going on in her life lately, and she said some interesting things. I’ve singled out Sharapova’s talk about her best on-court moment this year, her friendship with US Open finalist Novak Djokovic, and the latest information about her lingering shoulder injury.
Maria Sharapova had a wonderful time at the Fed Cup final in Moscow, when the Russian team won the title. Sharapova has never played for Russia, and many people said that she has been avoiding playing the Fed Cup. However, the world number four attended the final (probably to silence the critics!) and watched from the bench. Read more »
World No.6 Ana Ivanovic and world No.20 Agnes Szavay are scheduled to play an exhibition match in Hungary on December 10. The match will be the best of three sets, with a first-to-10 Super Tiebreak replacing a traditional third set.
Hungarian teenager Szavay, who works with Ivanovic's former coach Zoltan Kuharsky, won the China Open last week and cracked the top 20 on Monday.
The clash of these two players promises a highly entertaining match. (via The Ana Ivanovic website)
The tennis stadium for the Beijing 2008 Olympics is all set up and we’re only 316 days away from the huge sports event.
All over Beijing you can see cute little cartoon mascots. They are called “fuwa”, which is literally translated as “good luck dolls”. There are five types of these mascots, and each kind represents a different element of the natural world. They draw their individual colors from the Olympic rings.
Tennis is being represented by Yingying, the earthy yellow male figure, depicting health. Its animal is the Tibetan antelope.
Check out the other mascots too, they are sooo cute. I really like this Chinese style. (via Off the Baseline)
Maria Sharapova has been ruled out of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart because of a shoulder injury she has been carrying since March.
"I was really looking forward to the Stuttgart tournament and I'm very sorry my injury hasn't cleared up in time," Sharapova said.
"I'll do everything I can to return to the tour as quickly as possible." Read more »
World number one Justine Henin will compete in only three more tournaments this season: the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, the Tier I Zurich Open and the year-end Sony Ericsson Championships in Madrid.
However, fans in Belgium will get to see Henin – and three special guests – play a Christmas holiday exhibition which will be held in Charleroi from December 15-16, 2007. The Belgian's fellow top ten players Anna Chakvetadze and Nadia Petrova have already confirmed their participation in the sixth Women’s Tennis Trophy event, and the final player will be either Ana Ivanovic, Martina Hingis, Shahar Peer, or Francesca Schiavone. Read more »
World No.19 Tatiana Golovin gave an exclusive interview for a French newspaper L’Équipe, more precisely for L’Équipe Féminine, which is accompanied by beautiful photos of the tennis star. I very much like the way she looks, the clothes and make-up are unique and look fantastic on Tati.
If you understand some French, you can read her interview here, by clicking on the pages scanned.
On Sunday, Golovin won her second career title, a Tier IV event in Portoroz, Slovenia. Currently, the Frenchwoman is at the FORTIS Championships Luxembourg, where she's seeded eighth, and her first round opponent will be Sorana Cirstea of Romania.
France’s Tatiana Golovin and Russia’s Maria Kirilenko both clinched WTA singles titles on Sunday.
Top seed Golovin beat home favorite Katarina Srebotnik 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 to win the Slovenia Open in Portoroz for her second career title, while fourth seed Kirilenko won an innovative Sunfeast Open trophy (traditional Indian painting) in Kolkata, defeating Mariya Koryttseva of Ukraine 6-0, 6-2 in the final.
World No.19 Golovin lost in the first round of the US Open, so she played the smaller Portoroz event in an attempt to regain her rhythm.
"My form is up again," said the 19-year-old Frenchwoman. "I have a feeling that my strikes are like at the start of the season."
World No.35 Kirilenko faced no difficulty in outplaying a first-time singles finalist Koryttseva who made too many errors.
"It's been a great week. I didn't expect the final to be so easy," said Kirilenko. (sources: Tennis X, ESPN; photos via Tennis Fairy, TSF)
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