The Laureus World Sports Academy recognized tennis stars Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters to be among the most successful athletes of the past year, naming them winners of the prestigious Laureaus Sports Awards at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.

The world No.1 Williams won the Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year Award, while the Laureus Comeback of the Year Award went into the hands of Kim Clijsters. Williams has won her third Laureus Award and second in the same category, following her impressive 2009 Grand Slam successes, that is her victories at the Australian Open and Wimbledon. Clijsters owes her award to her amazing run at the 2009 US Open, when she won the title while playing only her third tournament after a two-year absence. (via On the Baseline)

World No.41 Melanie Oudin of the United States has signed a four-year sponsorship deal with cellular phone service provider Virgin Mobile.

The surprising 2009 US Open quarterfinalist could earn as much as $2 million from the deal, depending on her tennis results, but is guaranteed approximately $500,000 from the company.

If the 18-year-old Oudin wins this year’s US Open (which is how likely to happen?), Virgin Mobile will donate $1 million to homeless-youth organizations as part of The RE*Generation program. The goal is to raise awareness about the homeless youth in the United States.

Oudin already has deals with BackOffice Associates and AirTran, that both came after her run at the 2009 US Open. (source: Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal, photo: Women Who Serve)

The Women’s Tennis Association and Sony Ericsson have extended their agreement to the end of 2012, but in a reduced form.

Sony Ericsson will lose its naming rights when the current six-year $88-million contract expires at the end of 2010, so the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour will get back to being simply the WTA Tour, and the prestigious season-ending Championships will not be called the Sony Ericsson Championships any more. Nevertheless, Sony Ericsson will continue to be the leading partner of the WTA Tour.

"To have that leverage, for us to have our own brand back will give us new opportunities to attract revenues. By getting some rights back we can grow further," said Stacey Allaster, CEO of the WTA Tour.

No financial details have been released, but media reports estimate the new sponsorship deal to be around $27 million for the nearly three-year period. (source: Reuters, photo: warrenski)

Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova claimed her maiden Sony Ericsson WTA Tour title by beating Slovakian second seed Daniela Hantuchova in the final of the Monterrey Open in Mexico.

The 18-year-old Pavlyuchenkova was forced to play both her semifinal and her title match in the same day, because of a rain delay. However, that didn’t stop the third seed from winning her first Tour final 1-6 6-1 6-0, defeating Hantuchova for the second time this season, after Dubai.

Prior to winning the Monterrey Open title, Pavlyuchenkova’s Indian Wells semifinal last year was her best result, where she upset Top 10 players Jelena Jankovic and Agnieszka Radwanska. By the way, Jankovic was top seed at the Monterrey Open and lost in the opening round.

Pavlyuchenkova has now risen from No.28 to No.25 in the rankings. (photo via Yahoo)

Our loyal reader Karunya reminded us that we had failed to report that 23-year-old Sania Mirza called off her engagement to childhood friend Sohrab Mirza in January. The reason for their separation is stated to be incompatibility, agreed by both Sania and Sohrab.

Sania Mirza and Sohrab Mirza got engaged July 10, 2009 in a lavish ceremony. Their families, friends for half a century, will retain good relations. (via BBC)

Former world No.1 Martina Hingis of Switzerland has become engaged to her boyfriend Andreas Bieri, a 38-year-old Zurich attorney, and will marry him this year.

The 29-year-old five-time Grand Slam champion commented on her engagement for Zisch newspaper: "It's true: Andreas has made me a marriage proposal. I was totally surprised. Of course I accepted."

Hingis used to be engaged to fellow tennis player Radek Stepanek. When they broke off their engagement in 2007, Stepanek started dating 11 years younger tennis beauty Nicole Vaidisova and they are getting married as well, as Women Who Serve reports. However, this is not the first time news about Vaidisova's and Stepanek's marriage are circulating.

By the way, new tennis blog called Goddesses of the Court has a nice and supportive post about Nicole Vaidisova's talent and her career slump, that as you know Radek Stepanek is often blamed for. (via WTA Women Tennis)

I had a short telephone interview with former world No.1 and three-time Grand Slam champion Lindsay Davenport last week. The topic was the Tennis Night in America, the sport's largest youth recruitment effort, which culminated on March 1 when the best stars in tennis competed for the Billie Jean King Cup at the Madison Square Garden.

I know that many of you have eagerly been awaiting the interview, and here it is. My voice is not very clear, probably because I was calling from afar, but anyway, the focus is on Lindsay. I asked her about the main objective of Youth Registration events and Tennis Night in America, why she would suggest people to join, and about her opinion on the general state of women’s tennis in the US. Also, as promised, I asked Lindsay about the way players are selected for the BNP Paribas Showdown, as we are having a discussion here on Women's Tennis Blog whether the criterion is the player’s number of Grand Slam titles,  year-end No.1 ranking, popularity, or possibly something else.

Thank you, Lindsay, for taking your time to talk to me, Jim from KEF Media Associates, thank you for organizing the interview. I hope we'll have more opportunities like this one.

Top seed Jelena Jankovic suffered an upset in the opening round of the $220,000 Monterrey Open in Mexico, falling to world No.72 Anastasija Sevastova in their first encounter.

The ninth-ranked Jankovic saved set point down 5-4 to take the first set, but wasted a 3-1 lead in the second set and 4-2 in the third to eventually lose to Latvia’s only Top 500 player 5-7 6-4 6-4.

The 19-year-old Sevastova has now scored her first Top 10 victory. Before, she had faced two Top 10 players, Svetlana Kuznetsova at the 2009 US Open and Agnieszka Radwanska at Dubai this year, but lost to both.

Jankovic has played four events so far in 2010 and is yet to reach a quarterfinal. (source: Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, photo: Ralf Reinecke)

The long-awaited Billie Jean King Cup in the BNP Paribas Showdown took place on Monday night in New York and the winner is seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams.

Firstly, the one-set, no-ad semifinals were played at the Madison Square Garden. Kim Cijsters defeated Serena Williams’ replacement Ana Ivanovic 7-6 (7-2), while Venus Williams took care of Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-4. I would like to point out a non-promising statement of Ana Ivanovic, who has a new coach: "It was a tough match. I was actually very nervous, but it makes it an important match. I just wanted to do so well." I can't believe we are listening to the same old story.

The final between Venus Williams and Kim Clijsters followed. Williams, who lost in the finals to her sister Serena last year, defeated Clijsters 6-4 3-6 7-5 in front of the crowd of 11,702 and earned $400,000 of the astonishing $1.2 million prize money. Good on you, Venus, for earning $787,000 in prize money in the past two weeks and one day ($350,000 for Dubai victory, $37,000 for winning Acapulco, and now these latest $400,000).

Billie Jean King herself did not attend the event because she is recovering from a recent double-knee replacement. (source: ESPN)

Serbia’s world No.9 Jelena Jankovic celebrated her 25th birthday on February 28th in Monterrey, Mexico.

Jankovic received a wildcard for the $220,000 Monterrey Open and is about to play her first-round match against Anastasija Sevastova, ranked 72th in the world.

The top-seeded Serb is the only Top 10 player in Mexico, as the others took some time to rest for the next week’s big event in Indian Wells. Second seed at the Monterrey Open is 24th-ranked Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia, also a wildcard. (photos via Great Tennis Photos)