Russia's Dinara Safina came back from a set down for the third time in the tournament to win the Qatar Telecom German Open on Sunday with a 3-6 6-2 6-2 victory over compatriot Elena Dementieva.

World No.17 Safina beat three Top 10 players – No.1 Justine Henin, No.6 Serena Williams, and finally No.9 Elena Dementieva — on route to her first Tier I title, and sixth career singles title. Read more »

Former world No.4 Jelena Dokic seems to be getting back on track. It's a pity, but the fact that the 25-year-old Dokic won a $25,000 challenger in Florence is excellent news. In the final, the world No.429 defeated Lucie Hradecka 6-1 6-3. (via Great Tennis Photos)

World No.21 Tatiana Golovin has withdrawn from the Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome, Internationaux de Strasbourg, and from her home Grand Slam, Roland Garros.

It's a pity, Golovin skipped Roland Garros last year too, the reason was an ankle injury. This year, she has withdrawn, presumably, because of a failure to recover completely from surgery — she had to remove a cyst from her hip. Well, at least Tati has a boyfriend to lick her wounds.

At this week’s Qatar Telecom German Open, Golovin lost in the first round, to Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark. The next tournament the Frenchwoman should be playing is the International Women's Open in Eastbourne. (via Women Who Serve, photo: Getty Images)

Seventh seed Elena Dementieva defeated defending champion Ana Ivanovic 6-2 7-5 at the Qatar Telecom German Open to set up an all-Russian final against Dinara Safina.

Ana Ivanovic is yet to beat Elena Dementieva, as she now trails the Russian 4-0 in head-to-head terms. In today’s semifinal, Ivanovic made too many unforced errors. She had a set point in the second set, but an all too familiar unforced error saw her chance disappear. Because the Serb didn’t manage to reach the final in Berlin, she’ll drop to No.3 in the rankings and Maria Sharapova will rise to No.3.

In-form Dinara Safina, who beat Justine Henin in the third round before ending Serena Williams's 17-match winning streak, advanced to the Qatar Total Open final with a 6-4 6-1 victory over Victoria Azarenka. Safina, seeded 13th, had to twice battle back from a break down in the first set against 18-year-old Azarenka. But in the second set, Azarenka seemed to be struggling with a knee injury, and Safina cruised to victory in just under one-and-a-half hours. Anyway, Belorussia's Azarenka is projected to crack the Top 20 for the first time on the new rankings — she will rise from No.26 to No.19. (via BBC)

Defending champion Ana Ivanovic of Serbia finished her quarterfinal match against Hungarian Agnes Szavay with a victory and in that way reached the final four of the Qatar Telecom German Open where she'll play Elena Dementieva.

Ivanovic and Szavay started their match yesterday, but it was called off at one-set all due to bad light. Today, Ivanovic wasted little time in taking the third set and the final score was 3-6 6-4 6-3.

Seed No.2 Ivanovic and seed No.7 Demetieva will play the semifinal later today. The Russian has won all three of their previous meetings, including a defeat three months ago in the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships, but they have never played each other on clay. Ivanovic needs to reach the final to hold on to her number two ranking otherwise Russian former number one Maria Sharapova will overtake her.

In the other semifinal, Russian Dinara Safina, who sent home Justine Henin and Serena Williams, plays Viktoria Azarenka of Belarus. (via Reuters, photo: Getty Images)

Every women’s tennis player wants Radek Stepanek, so Nicole Vaidisova has to support her man if she doesn’t want to lose him.

The 19-year-old Vaidisova cheered on her boyfriend, ATP world No.27 Stepanek, in his match against world No.1 Roger Federer. And the young tennis star brought him luck as he defeated the top-ranked men’s tennis player in the world.

Vaidisova was able to watch the ATP tournament in Rome, as she was an early loser at the Qatar Telecom German Open in Berlin. Vaidisova was seeded 12th, and lost to Gisela Dulko in the first round.

You can see more photos of Vaidisova watching her boyfriend here.

World No.1 Justine Henin has pulled out of the next week's Internazionali BNL d'Italia due to fatigue, and the WTA Tour said she will be fined $20,000 for the late withdrawal.

Before the ongoing Qatar Telecom German Open, Henin took a month off with a knee injury. She had hoped to restore her confidence in Berlin in time for the French Open, which she has won four times. But that didn't happen.

Henin has struggled for form all year. On Thursday, the Belgian lost to Dinara Safina in the third round of the Qatar Telecom German Open. Last month, Henin was beaten by Serena Williams at the Sony Ericsson Open with the worst score for a No. 1 player in nine years, 6-2 6-0. Also, Maria Sharapova defeated her in straight sets at the Australian Open. (via CBS Sports, photo: Getty Images)

World No.17 Dinara Safina first upset No.1 Justine Henin at the Qatar Telecom German Open, and on Friday the Russian has continued her impressive run winning a thrilling three-setter over another Grand Slam champion, Serena Williams.

The result shows the excitement of the quarterfinal — 2-6 6-1 7-6(5) — Safina came back from a set down and pulled off the victory in the tiebreaker. Safina described the win over world No.6 Serena Williams as "one of the best matches of my life".

In the semifinals, seed No.13 Safina will face unseeded Victoria Azarenka of Belarus who defeated the 15th seed Alona Bondarenko of Ukraine 7-6 6-2.

Defending champion Ana Ivanovic played a quarterfinal against Agnes Szavay, but at one set all, the match was called off due to bad light. They will continue the match on Saturday. The winner of the match between Ivanovic and Szavay will meet Elena Dementieva after she beat Jelena Jankovic in an up-and-down 6-3 2-6 6-3 win. (source: BBC, photo via Craig Hickman)

Jelena Jankovic is a very successful tennis player, but she has often mentioned that tennis is not her only interest. Besides other things, she loves acting and Hollywood, and has even taken part in a Rebook Entertainment-produced TV show. She was also promised a role in one movie. We now know that Jelena took an acting class, and I suppose it’s not her last one.

Here’s what Jelena said on her blog:

Monday was so busy for me. Apart from practicing and All-Access Hour which is always scheduled at the beginning of the week, I had an acting class that I took part in. It was so much fun. It is always a good time when you do something to forget a bit about tennis, and relax your mind. It was only an hour long, but I was given several themes and at the beginning they gave me a task to be in certain situations and I really had to use my imagination. After that, I did variety of exercises in order to test me and see my acting potential.

I have no worries about Jelena Jankovic. I would like her to become even more successful in tennis, because she certainly hasn’t reached her top, but even if it doesn’t work out, she could make a living on various other things, and be happy. I see her as the type of person open to every new experience. (via Down the Line)

Justine Henin lost early on her favorite surface. The world number one was defeated by Dinara Safina, ranked 17th, in the Qatar Telecom German Open third round. Final score: 5-7 6-3 6-1.

A three-times winner in Berlin and four-times French Open champion, Henin suffered her first loss on clay since losing to Svetlana Kuznetsova in the Berlin semifinals last year.

This defeat also means that Henin didn’t start her clay season and French Open defense as she had planned.

"This week was important, not only in terms of the French Open, but also in terms of getting some confidence back," said the Belgian.

"I will take a few days off, focus on Rome and we will see what happens now in the next few weeks."

Henin has won all five previous meetings against Safina, but this time she had problems with her serve and was broken eight times.

BTW: Justine has already started cutting back her schedule and is planning for a retirement she said could come in the next two to five years. (via BBC)