Dinara Safina stopped Jelena Jankovic’s quest for No.1 spot defeating the Serb 7-6 6-1 in the East West Bank Classic semifinals. Safina will face Italian Flavia Pennetta in the final.

If top-seeded Jankovic had won the tournament she would have occupied Ana Ivanovic’s No.1 spot in the rankings, but always-injured JJ lost the first set in the tie-break after which Safina quickly took the second set and completed her victory. "In the second set, I couldn't go anymore. My legs were shaking a little," said the world No.2 who entered the LA tournament with a left knee injury.

No.10 seed Pennetta will play her first Tier II final which she reached by overcoming Bethanie Mattek 3-6 6-2 7-5 in the final four. (source: BBC, photos: Getty Images)

World No.1 Ana Ivanovic spent her summer holiday in Rafael Nadal’s home of Mallorca, an island with "the beautiful turquoise color of the sea and the pure white sand" as Ana described it.
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Top seed Jelena Jankovic moved into the East West Bank Classic semifinals with an impressive 7-5 6-4 victory over ninth seed Nadia Petrova and will next meet Russia's Dinara Safina, seeded fourth, who crushed Victoria Azarenka 6-3 6-1 in her quarterfinal.

Jankovic fought back from breaks down in both sets in the quarterfinal and is now two steps away from taking the No.1 ranking from fellow Serb Ana Ivanovic.

The biggest problem of J.J. are always her injuries, but she said her knee was holding up well and was satisfied with her movement. Despite constant health problems, her game has improved, and I especially like this quote of Petrova: "She's not just running on the baseline anymore, she's serving better and taking the ball earlier and coming forward."

In the other semifinal at the East West Bank Classic seed No.10 Flavia Pennetta, who beat 14th-seeded Sybille Bammer 7-6 3-6 6-1, will encounter unseeded American Bethanie Mattek, who defeated China's Yuan Meng 6-2 7-5. (source: BBC, Getty Images)

Jelena Jankovic remained on course to take over the No.1 ranking from compatriot Ana Ivanovic with a 6-3 6-2 victory over Melinda Czink of Hungary at the East West Bank Classic.

In the match against lucky loser Czink, Jankovic's serve was much better than usual.

"If I could hit this serve every day like that, my life would be so much easier," said J.J., laughing. Read more »

Ana Ivanovic was greeted by the President of Serbia Boris Tadic as part of the Serbian Olympic team in Belgrade. The world No.1 was the only tennis player at the reception as the others were away at tournaments. Read more »

Jelena Jankovic was linked to some men she didn’t even know, but more than anyone the world liked to follow her friendship with Jamie Murray. In one interview J.J. demystified her relation with Murray and talked about her real boyfriend, a guy from Serbia.

Jankovic enjoyed her mixed doubles success with Jamie Murray at Wimbledon 2007, but it gave a misleading impression about her love life. Because of the situation with Murray, Jankovic had certain issues with her real boyfriend. Read more »

Marion Bartoli was talking about her father Walter’s influence on her and she spontaneously, and bluntly, compared Walter to Maria Sharapova's father Yuri.

He didn't put any pressure on me. He wasn't saying, 'You have to win,' or 'You have to do this or you have to do that'. He's not like Maria Sharapova's dad. It's completely different.

Haha, well, Yuri looks tough. I will never forget the way he left the stands when Maria was losing to Agnieszka Radwanska at the 2007 US Open. I felt sorry for Maria who had to face him after the defeat, I would've been terrified. (via Down the Line)

Photographer Koto Bolofo did a stunning set of photos of Venus Williams which are displayed in a book called Venus Williams (you remember, I’ve already written about it).

Now I’ve come across even more of these beautiful photos which portray Venus and her personality from a special angle, and I also found a video of Venus and Koto talking about the project. Two more pictures after the cut. Read more »

Getting Personal has sent me a personal tennis calendar, so I've decided to write a little article about the present I received.

You can choose to personalize your calendar with a name or a company's name — I wanted to have one dedicated to Women's Tennis Blog. It’s nice. I especially like the fact that you can order these calendars whenever you want because they start in the month that you choose. So, you're not restricted to the beginning of the year, but you get twelve months from the starting point you want.

I believe, however, that they work a bit better with personal names than with the names of companies, or in my case the names of blogs, because it looks a bit odd that Women’s Tennis Blog is playing against Murray.

Here you can read more info about these calendars and see the image gallery.

After the cut you can see two photos of Women's Tennis Blog's personal calendar. Read more »

I consider Russia’s Maria Kirilenko the most beautiful female tennis player and this fashion spread on her website is simply stunning. Enjoy these great photos!

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