We've featured so many players in our Kiddie Pics series and strangely enough only now did one of the most popular women's tennis players Maria Sharapova get her turn. A lot of Sharapova's photos are circulating on the Internet and this is my collection compiled over the last couple of years.

In the above photo you can see Maria with her mother Yelena and her father Yuri.

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CNN's Kate Giles reports on the lucrative sports deals that tennis players have and how valuable they are to their sponsors. Some top players earn more money off the court than on the court (even though their earnings from playing tournaments are enormous).

Look at our favorite Maria Sharapova as an example: the Russian has a $65 million deal with Nike (don’t forget ALL the other sponsors she has) and her total career prize money is about $13 million which includes three Grand Slam titles. What makes tennis players so interesting to sports brands is the fact that they are not famous only within the niche of tennis but their celebrity status spreads much further.

The second part of the video is even more interesting. It shows how tennis and fashion have always complemented each other and it takes us 120 years back. The TV presenter tries on one of the women's tennis outfits from the past. Remember that we discussed how it would be a cool statement to introduce some of those fashion elements from history to the present (it was in our article called "Wimbledon evolution in video, history photos"). It took Kate half an hour to put the complete 11-piece outfit on! However, I’m still for bringing back some details from the past. (source: CNN’s Open Court)

Bethanie Mattek Sands is one of the most famous tennis players when it comes to fashion sense, or nonsense. That's why I'm doing this overview of her on-court outfits, as promised a long time ago to our reader Lilly.

No matter how trashy some of Bethanie’s outfits are, they certainly bring a lot of fun. This ball boy's peak was in all the media during the 2007 US Open.

However, I have to say that not all Bethanie’s styles fall into the category of unsophisticated (to put it that way), her tube socks are priceless and a great addition to tennis fashion. Read more »

Dear readers,

This is a short post aimed at helping out one of our faithful readers Emily and spreading the word about her new tennis blog called WTA Tour Insight. Emily is currently in the first year of studying journalism and for one of her assessments she had to create some sort of publication. Inspired by my work here at Women’s Tennis Blog, which she visits every day, Emily decided to make a blog about women’s tennis.

Emily’s goal is to keep readers up to date with the latest WTA news, including frequent score updates, and with off-court news. She’s planning to continue blogging after her studies are concluded.

Check out WTA Tour Insight and why not leave a comment or some sort of advice for Emily.

Good luck with your studies, Emily, and I hope I was helpful!

Best regards,

Marija

Let’s continue our traditional series of photos of women’s tennis players when they were children. It’s not hard to tell that the person in the above picture is Caroline Wozniacki – she hasn’t changed much, actually not a lot of time has passed, she’s still only 20.

The young Dane has seven WTA singles titles under her belt, and can be proud of reaching the final of the 2009 US Open. In addition, she is currently ranked fourth, and was once ranked as high as No.2. Plus, she is the only Danish woman in the Top 500 on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.

Remember the interview with 13-year-old Wozniacki? Don’t skip that one if you haven’t seen it.

Dear readers,

Tennis season has no summer holidays but Women's Tennis Blog does haha and here's just a short note that posting will be slower in the next two weeks as I will be relaxing in the Greek sun. Yay! I got the vacation for free actually, and who could resist that!

Of course, I made sure not to leave you empty-handed, so I prepared a number of posts in advance. There will be no latest news apparently, but there will be some interesting stuff concerning women's tennis players.

All your emails and questions will be answered when I come back.

Kisses,

Marija

Serena Williams has recently announced she needed foot surgery to repair the damage done to her foot when she stepped on broken glass at a restaurant. It was confirmed then that the world No.1 would miss three tournaments leading up to the US Open, but the latest news coming out of the mouth of tour spokesman Andrew Walker is that Serena’s appearance at the final Grand Slam of the year is questionable as well.

Serena's recent tweets tell us she can't wait to get back to playing tennis:

hi guys! thanks for all the get well wishes. it really means a lot can't wait to get out of bed & back on the courts & do what i do best!

Hey guys I'm doing better. Thanks for all the love.

i am having a tough few days. my mm and friends have been taking good care of me. i hoe to be bak on the our soon. i miss playing…

love my crew taking care o me after surgery notice my dogs sooo cute

(source: ESPN, photo: sr_cranks)

The 2010 Rogers Cup in Montreal is favoring Canadian players over 2006 champion Ana Ivanovic when it comes to awarding wildcards and so the Grand Slam winner will have to play qualifying to get a spot in the main draw.

The brighter perspective is that Ana will add some spice to the qualifying rounds, but you have to feel some sadness when you read what Ana said two years ago: "In two years I'm gonna come back here and try to be eager to win again. Hopefully, you know, I'll still have the good support."

The former world No.1 Ivanovic is now ranked 65th, and her win-loss record this season is 11-12. (source: Forty Deuce)

Estonian Kaia Kanepi won her first Sony Ericsson WTA Tour singles title by defeating defending champion and top seed Flavia Pennetta 6-4 6-3 in the final of the XXIII SNAI Open – Internazionali Femminili di Tennis di Palermo.

The wold No.38 Kanepi, seeded fifth in Palermo, had two runner-up finishes in the past: one in the Hasselt final against Kim Clijsters in 2006, and one in 2008 against Caroline Wozniacki in Tokyo. Pennetta’s score in career finals is 9-11 now and 7-7 on clay.

Today in Palermo Kanepi scored her first victory over Pennetta on clay, and they are now 3-3 in head-to-head meetings.

Prior to Palermo, Kanepi had three quarterfinal appearances this season, including one at Wimbledon where she lost to Petra Kvitova. (photo: Stephane Martinache)

Agnes Szavay has won ten straight matches and after defending her title at the home tournament in Budapest last week the Hungarian won her second straight title with a finals victory against Barbora Zahlavova Strycova at the ECM Prague Open.

Szavay, seeded seventh in Prague, started her match against the eighth-seeded first-time finalist Zahlavova Strycova strongly and finished it on the same note to take the match 6-2 1-6 6-2.

The world No.49, once ranked 13th, has now collected five Sony Ericsson WTA Tour singles titles: Palermo and Beijing in 2007, two in Budapest, and now this one in Prague.

Partnered with Monica Niculescu, Szavay also played the doubles final at the $220,000 International-level event, but the unseeded pair lost to third seeds Timea Bacsinszky and Tathiana Garbin 7-5 7-6(4). (source: Sony Ericsson WTA Tour)