Jelena Dokic recorded her first Top 5 victory in eight years by coming from a set down and beating fifth-ranked Francesca Schiavone 2-6 7-6(1) 6-4 in the first round of the Malaysian Open. The former world No.4 Dokic has actually retained her perfect record against the Italian, but their last meeting before today's one was ten years ago in Moscow. Dokic is 3-0 head-to-head against Schiavone now.

The 27-year-old Dokic, currently world No.91, had played six WTA events in 2011 prior to Kuala Lumpur and never won more than one match in the main draw except for the Paris Open where she reached the quarterfinals, beating Top 20 and Top 30 players on the way. She fell to Kim Clijsters then, who became No.1 by winning the match.

The Australian is grateful for her current form and is looking for a steady improvement:

I'm still not as consistent as I want to be - there are still some weeks where I don't play up to my high standard. But this year I'm playing WTA events every week and it's making a difference. Thank God, no injuries… my body is great and hopefully it will stay that way.

(source: WTA Tour, photo: Tidalist)

Serena Williams is now walking without her shiny cast and the latest news is that she is planning to be back for Roland Garros. Maybe this is yet another false alarm for tennis fans, but time will tell.

I have been wearing it [the cast] for so many months, so I am so happy. My foot feels good and I’m starting to train right away, and I intend to be back for the French Open. And I have so missed wearing heels, I can’t wait to get them back on! I just try to stay positive.

Serena had been scheduled to play her first tennis match in eight months on March 8th, 2011. The occasion was the Nike Clash of Champions, also featuring Maria Sharapova, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. However, Serena has recently announced she will not be able to play, but will show up, in the role of a referee. Her replacement will be Victoria Azarenka.

The last piece of news on Serena's official website is still her withdrawal from the January's Hopman Cup, dating back to November 24, 2010. (source: WTA Tour Insights, photo via WTA Tour)

Gisela Dulko defeated Arantxa Parra Santonja 6-3 7-6(5) in the final of the Abierto Mexicano TELCEL and became the first Argentinian to triumph at that tournament. The fourth-seeded Dulko had played the Mexican event five times, but always struggled, never going past the quarterfinals.

The 73rd-ranked Dulko, once ranked as high as No.23, looked to be cruising to victory when she established a 6-3 5-1 lead and served for the match. But it wasn’t to be so easy, as the world No.79 Parra Santonja fought back to force a tiebreak. However, Dulko won in straight sets and earned her fourth career title - the first three came in Budapest and Forest Hills (2007) and in Fes (2008).

As for Parra Santonja, not only did she reach the final in singles, she also played the doubles final, paired with Lourdes Domínguez Lino. However, she finished runner-up there as well, to Mariya Koryttseva and Ioana Raluca Olaru.

Additional info: Gisela Dulko is featured in the latest issue of SportWeek, Italy’s sports magazine. Check out the modeling photos after the cut. Read more »

World No.3 Vera Zvonareva won her first title in over a year (the period in which she lost five finals!), after defeating top-ranked Caroline Wozniacki in the final of the 2011 Qatar Ladies Open. They both played great tennis, but it was Zvonareva who always had a slight edge, which was increasingly frustrating Wozniacki, a bit of a favorite who had lost just 9 games en route to the championship match.

Even though the match could have easily gone either way, the first big moment approaching victory to Zvonareva's side was when Wozniacki had three successive chances to break the Russian and even the score to 4-4. The Dane wasted them all and Zvonareva capitalized on her 5-3 lead to soon take the first set.

In the second set there was a crucial fifth game, on Wozniacki's serve, at 2-2. There were eight deuces and well over 10 minutes of play, and Zvonareva came out as the winner of that one. More tense games followed and until the end the winner was not apparent, but Zvonareva maintained her high level of tennis and kept her nerve – even when she had to let go of an apparent match point, because she didn't have a challenge to challenge a wrong call from a line judge.

Final score: 6-4 6-4. As for the money finalists took home: Zvonareva's share is $111,000, while Wozniacki's is almost twice less, $60,000.

Wozniacki will remain No.1, but this defeat will surely stay in her head. On the other hand, congrats to Zvonareva for wonderful performance and result in Doha. It was really nice to see her jumping, all smiles.

I have to use this opportunity of congratulating people to do a rather awkward thing – congratulate myself. Women's Tennis Blog was visited by 35,326 people yesterday!

And last but not least, I'd like to give a special thanks to Johan Rivera, a professional photographer based in Qatar, who was sending me loads of fresh and awesome pics from the tournament!

Second seed Vera Zvonareva won an entertaining three-set Qatar Ladies Opensemifinal against fifth seed Jelena Jankovic, in which the winner was uncertain until the last moment.

The beginning of the match was very misleading - just as at 40-0 it seemed that Jankovic would confidently win her first service game and give great resistance in the match, Zvonareva won five straight points and broke the Serb. The set finished pretty much as miserably for Jankovic, as she lost it win only one game won.

The situation prepared Jankovic's fans for a meltdown, but Jankovic offered a surprise, slowly coming back, and bit by bit outweighing her downs with ups, she won the second set 6-2. Read more »

France's Marion Bartoli was no match for in-form Caroline Wozniacki in the Qatar Ladies Open semifinals and the top-ranked Dane will now be looking for her second straight title, after her victory over Svetlana Kuznetsova last week in Dubai.

Bartoli may had defeated Wozniacki in their previous two meetings, once in Cincinnati in 2010 and once in Stuttgart in 2009, but her resistance today was very poor. The world No.18 won 11% of points on first serve, and it was only after Wozniacki raced to a 4-0 lead that Bartoli managed to win a game of her own. But that was pretty much it, until the third game of the second set, when Bartoli held her serve for the first time and won her second and her final game of the match. Therefore, the score is 6-1 6-1.

Wozniacki is now 4-2 against Bartoli. Her opponent in the final will be either No.2 seed Vera Zvonareva or No.5 seed Jelena Jankovic. (photo: Johan Rivera)

Semifinals of the Qatar Ladies Open in Doha will feature a clash of two potentially weak players – Vera Zvonareva may be tired from her 3 hours and 10 minutes long battle against Daniela Hantuchova in the quarterfinals and Jelena Jankovic who sustained a left knee injury in her quarterfinal.

Zvonareva avenged her defeat to Hantuchova in the recent semifinals of the PTT Pataya Open, but not before an exhausting 7-5 6-7(5) 7-5 match. The second-seeded Zvonareva, who hit 48 winners to Hantuchova’s 29, rallied from 5-3 down in the deciding set. Hantuchova committed a total of 57 unforced errors. Read more »

World No.1 Caroline Wozniacki lost just two games in the Qatar Ladies Open quarterfinal against 15th-ranked Flavia Pennetta – the first two games, in particular, before winning 12 straight games. Wozniacki hit 35 winners to Pennetta’s 33, but the real difference came in unforced errors, where Wozniacki had three times less – 7 to Pennetta’s 21.

Even though the score is so dominantly on Wozniacki's side, the match was not as easy. Actually, there were two long games (about 13 minutes each), one featuring nine deuces, and the other one seven.

Marion Bartoli will be Wozniacki’s opponent in the semis. The Frenchwoman earlier defeated Peng Shuai 6-2 6-2. (photo: Johan Rivera)

It was mixed luck for seeds on Wednesday at the Qatar Ladies Open – three advanced and three suffered losses in the second round.

Top seed Caroline Wozniacki belongs to the lucky part, and continuing the good form that took her to Dubai title last week, she defeated Nadia Petrova 6-3 6-2. Also victorious was second seed and 2008 WTA Qatar Open finalist Vera Zvonareva, who beat Dominika Cibulkova 6-1 6-2. Just to remind you, the tournament wasn’t even held in 2009 and 2010. Another successful seed, No.5 Jelena Jankovic, avenged the defeat of her compatriot Bojana Jovanovski in the previous round and took out the young Serbian hope’s conqueror, Sania Mirza, 6-0 6-1.

Now let’s move on to the unfortunate seeds. No.3 seed and world No.5 Francesca Schiavone lost her opening match of the tournament to Peng Shuai 7-5 6-3. The 38th-ranked Chinese is a qualifier into the draw, and supposedly, that's why she had more time to adapt to the court. Since it’s Peng’s second career Top 5 victory, and the first in six years, on paper it is one of the her greatest results. However, the Chinese doesn’t consider the win too big, and states her win over Kim Clijsters, who was on a winning streak of about 30 matches, in 2005 in San Diego, as her greatest achievement.

Lucky loser Klara Zakopalova earned her fifth Top 10 win with a 6-2 6-1 victory over fourth seed Li Na. Eighth seed Shahar Peer also lost, in exactly an hour, to Marion Bartoli 6-1 6-0. (photos: Johan Rivera, source: WTA Tour)

Maria Sharapova has again pushed the boundaries of tennis off-court fashion and showed everyone who's the boss.

The style ruler of the WTA is rocking the retro look for Tatler Russia, the magazine's March 2011 issue. Read more »