Maria Sharapova has positioned herself among the favorites for the 2011 French Open, the only Grand Slam the 24-year-old Russian still hasn’t won, by following up her win over world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki in the Rome semifinals with a 6-2 6-4 defeat of last year’s French Open runner-up Samantha Stosur.

When Sharapova is in a good tennis period, it’s a joy to watch her, her determination and focus combined with her powerful game produce a lot of winners that can’t leave you emotionless. I’m really looking forward to her shaking up the draw at the French Open. Not to mention that her fiancé’s engagement from the stands is really cute, it makes Sharapova’s wins even more moving. Read more »

Maria Sharapova is far from the best mover on clay, but this time her power was too much for Caroline Wozniacki’s defensive game, and the Russian earned her first victory over a No.1 player since her comeback from a serious shoulder injury in May 2009 and also the 24-year-old reached the final of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia tournament in Rome for the first time. Maybe her fiancé's support made all the difference.

Sharapova won the last five games of the semifinal and the last game she won to love, while in the entire match she scored 36 winners to Wozniacki’s 15. Final result: 7-5 6-3. Not so promising prospects for Wozniacki’s French Open campaign – this year on red clay she was upset by Julia Goerges two times, in Stuttgart and Madrid, and now by Sharapova. Read more »

The WTA Tour unveiled a new ad campaign entitled "Strong is Beautiful", aimed at kindling greater engagement of fans around the world by showing all the beauty of women’s tennis players whilst also portraying them as individuals who needed to overcome various hurdles in life in order to come where they are and stay there.

The campaign features 38 WTA players and includes TV, print and digital advertisements, as well as social media applications. I like this campaign, it’s classy, artistic and doesn’t promote only the very top players. Also, I like the 30-second videos. Besides the nice music, unique styling and the wonderful scenery and atmosphere, I think it's great that some players are telling their life story in their native language. Read more »

In a battle of the WTA Tour's most famous defensive players, world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki defeated ninth-ranked Jelena Jankovic to reach the semifinals of the Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome. After each of them won one set, a string of service breaks followed in the decider, seven of them precisely, and in as much as the first four the server didn't earn a game point! In the eighth game Wozniacki held her serve for 5-3 and then broke Jankovic to win the match 6-3 1-6 6-3.

Wozniacki's opponent in the semifinals will be ninth seed Maria Sharapova, who advanced when Victoria Azarenka retired (Azarenka won the first set 6-4, but retired in pain in the second set after losing the first three games).

The other semifinal will feature Samantha Stosur and Li Na. The sixth-seeded Stosur defeated second seed Francesca Schiavone 6-2 6-4, in a rematch of last year's French Open final. The fourth-seeded Li advanced with a 6-3 6-1 victory over Greta Arn of Hungary. (via WTA Tour, photo by our reader Tony)

Dinara Safina is sick of dealing with her back pain and announced that she doesn’t want to play tennis and has no idea when she will be ready to get back to competition. Interestingly, only three days ago Safina tweeted how her next tournament would be Roland Garros.

The situation has apparently changed and Safina’s statement is pretty illustrative of how tired she is of dealing with injury problems: Read more »

The WTA calendar and the United States have a new event – the International-level tournament called the Mid-Atlantic Women's Tennis Championships. It will take place from July 25th to July 31st and will be held at the Tennis Center at College Park, Washington DC.

Israeli Shahar Peer will headline the field this year. Also participating will be Lucie Safarova, former No.4 Jelena Dokic and Americans Melanie Oudin and Sloane Stephens.

The official website of the tournament is www.midatlanticwtc.com, though it's not rich in information yet.

World No.6 Li Na won Sydney and reached the final of the Australian Open in the beginning of the year, but then four straight losses followed, all the way to the Stuttgart tournament in the second half of April where she defeated Anastasija Sevastova before losing to Sabine Lisicki in the following round. The 29-year-old Li decided to make changes in her training and replaced her husband Jiang Shan's coaching by Denmark Fed Cup captain Michael Mortensen.

In the above video Mortensen is talking about his strategy for Li. Results of their cooperation are already here – Li reached the semifinals of the $4.5 million Mutua Madrid Open last week (she lost to eventual champion Petra Kvitova).
Here's how the China's first singles Grand Slam finalist commented on the partnership to Reuters:

My confidence was low and I felt I had to change my coach […] I'm not a young player so I know my body and what I can do on the court. We are focusing more on the mental side as I feel I need someone to support me.

At the ongoing tournament in Rome, Li is seeded fourth and after a bye in the first round she will play world No.46 Lourdes Dominguez Lino.

Last year Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez made a result of her career by winning the Internazionali BNL d’Italia as an unseeded player, but this time she was not even close to repeating the feat and stumbled to a 6-0 5-7 6-4 loss to Russian Ekaterina Makarova in the first round already. On the other hand, Ana Ivanovic showed that her Roland Garros odds are not to be disregarded, with a brilliant performance against Nadia Petrova on the clay courts of Rome.

En route to the 2010 Rome title, Martinez Sanchez defeated Francesca Schiavone, who soon after won the French Open, world No.2 Caroline Wozniacki (now the world No.1), the 2008 French Open champion Ana Ivanovic and in the final she defeated Jelena Jankovic, who had eliminated both the Williams sisters from the tournament. This time, however, Sanchez was bageled in the first set by the world No.37 Makarova, and despite recovering to take the second set, in the decider she was again blown away by the Russian. Here you can see highlights from their encounter.

As for Ivanovic, she actually had a retirement victory against Nadia Petrova, but the Russian decided to give up only after Ivanovic had won all the nine games they played. The Serb, sporting her beautiful pink and orange adidas Adizero dress, had one of her best performances in the recent months, hitting a flurry of winners and seven aces.

Twice Rome finalist Svetlana Kuznetsova, seeded 11th this year, fell in the opening round, but her opponent, Greta Arn of Hungary, needed three sets and two tiebreaks to defeat the Russian 3-6 7-6(4) 7-6(9). (photos: Johan Rivera, Ralf Reinecke)

The Premier-level tournament in Rome is warming up, with the strong field of seven of the Top 10 players present, including world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki, but let’s remind ourselves of the dormant long-time champions Serena and Venus Williams and Kim Clijsters. What are they doing?

Serena Williams has slipped from No.10 to No.17 in the rankings released today and there is still no word on when she will come back from her two foot surgeries and the blood clot in her lungs. Serena's fall in the rankings is actually historical for American tennis history, as this week is the first week ever that the United States have no representative in the Top 10 in either WTA or ATP lists.

Soon it will be a year that Serena has been away from tennis courts. However, the younger Williams sister is far from bored. Recently she even had a stalker drama in her life. Read more »

This time last year Petra Kvitova was ranked lower than No.60, while this week at the Mutua Madrid Open the Czech not only earned the introduction to the Top 10 but also her biggest career title by beating Victoria Azarenka in the final of the $4,500,000 Premier-level tournament. Kvitova now has four WTA titles to her name, and three of them came this year (Brisbane, Paris and now Madrid).

In the first set against fourth-seeded Azarenka, Kvitova had a point for a 4-0 lead, but Azarenka came back to level at 3-3. The set slowly progressed to a tiebreak and Kvitova was decisive then. The world No.18 Kvitova started the second set with a break and just like in the first set that advantage did not last and Azarenka leveled at 3-3. The match stayed uncertain until the end, especially when Azarenka saved a match point at 5-3 and held her serve. However, in what was to be the last game of the match, Kvitova was dominant and she stormed to her first Premier title without losing a point in the final game. Score: 7-6(3) 6-4.

Azarenka can console herself with the fact that she will become the highest ranked representative of her country ever, climbing to No.4 in the WTA rankings, and she had a great success in doubles at the Mutua Madrid Open, as together with Maria Kirilenko she beat the Top 3-seeded teams one after another en route to the title. (photo: Stephane Martinache)