Li Na's French Open title propelled her in the world of sponsorships and fashion. As you may have noticed, I'm all for it, it's refreshing to have an Asian in the mix. The image above is from the Chinese edition of the Marie Claire magazine. Doesn't Li look stunning?

The 29-year-old is earning nice amounts of money by virtue of her tennis success and she finished 8th in the Forbes list of the highest-paid female athletes, however, the Chinese prefers spending her husband's money  "I still like to use my husband's credit card because I want to save my money," Li joked. Read more »

Italian Roberta Vinci is today enjoying the best day of her life having scored the biggest victory of her career by upsetting world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki in the Dane's opener at the Premier-level $2,050,000 Rogers Cup in Toronto. Wozniacki clinched last year's Rogers Cup title in Montreal by winning her semifinal and final match in one day.

After losing the first set against the 22nd-ranked Vinci, Wozniacki surged to a 5-1 lead, and just as it looked the match would go to the third set, Vinci won amazing six straight games to defeat the top seed 6-4 7-5.

Vinci has won three WTA titles this season: Barcelona, 's-Hertogenbosch and Budapest. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Kim Clijsters was playing her first match since ’s-Hertogenbosch in June and a right ankle injury, but her comeback lasted for only a set and a half as she retired from her opening match at the Rogers Cup against Zheng Jie with left abdominal injury. Clijsters won the first set 6-3, and retired in the second at 1-2.

Clijsters already had an ultrasound and she was diagnosed with partial tear in her left stomach muscle, which she first felt during her warmup for the match.

Serena Williams’ comeback is still fresh and she has already clinched a title at Stanford and in her first-round match against Alona Bondarenko at the Rogers Cup Serena won stunning 100% of points on first serve and 76% on the second. Also, in the 6-0 first-set win Serena lost only four points. Not to mention that the set lasted just 16 minutes! Final result: 6-0 6-3.

Ana Ivanovic also advanced to the second round, not troubled by qualifier Zhang Shuai en route to a 6-1 6-1 victory. Another Serbian, Bojana Jovanovski, got past the first round, but it was a retirement win – Jelena Dokic withdrew while trailing 2-0 with right shoulder injury. Last week’s titlist at Carlsbad Agnieszka Radwanska also won her first round, with a 6-4 6-1 win over Elena Vesnina. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Monday at the Rogers Cup was a bad day for seeded players, as only one advanced and three of the other four fell to qualifiers in their opening matches.

The first in action was the winning seed, Samantha Stosur, but even her victory came only after she lost the first set 6-4 to Ayumi Morita. Final score: 4-6 6-2 6-3.

No.9 seed Marion Bartoli had won 19 of her last 23 matches, including her Eastbourne title, and had a perfect 4-0 head-to-head record against Galina Voskoboeva, but in the first round of the Rogers Cup the Kazakh qualifier was better and took Bartoli out 6-3 6-3. It is Voskoboeva's first Top 10 victory and at the recent Baku Cup she played her first WTA semifinals. Read more »

Agnieszka Radwanska ignored her heavily taped shoulder injury and defeated top seed Vera Zvonareva in the final of the Mercury Insurance Open 6-3 6-4 without dropping serve.

"Everything was working. Even though I had two really tough matches in the quarters and semifinals, I played very well today," said the third-seeded Pole who played from all over the court and mixed up her groundstrokes.

Zvonareva was on a nine-match winning streak with her Baku Cup title, but in the final against Radwanska her footwork wasn't good enough and she blames it for her 28 unforced errors.

The last time Radwanska played a WTA final was also at the Mercury Insurance Open, last year when she finished runner-up to Svetlana Kuznetsova. The 2011 Carlsbad title is Radwanska’s second Premier-level victory and her fifth WTA title.

En route to the trophy the 22-year-old Radwanska defeated Elena Baltacha, Christina McHale, Daniela Hantuchova, Andrea Petkovic, and finally Vera Zvonareva. The prize money for winning is $111,000. (photo via WTA Tour)

Vera Zvonareva and Agnieszka Radwanska went through their semifinal matches, Radwanska for the second year in a row, but it was not without drama.

You know that Radwanska has had a shoulder injury, so she was not in a favorable position, but even more bizarrely, her opponent, Andrea Petkovic had to rush away from the court to vomit at 0-40 down in the fifth game of the second set. Petkovic won the first set, but the bad lunch she said she had had gave Radwanska an advantage and the Pole advanced to the final with a 4-6 6-0 6-4 victory.

Top-seeded Zvonareva, who won the Baku Cup in Azerbaijan last week, lost a tough first set against Ana Ivanovic and needed seven set points to close the second set. In the third the Russian had a 5-1 lead when Ivanovic won three straight games.  After that Zvonareva finally finished the match. Our reader John Bolan, who is at the tournament, is reporting that the crucial factor in Ivanovic's loss was the bad fall which injured her knee. Final score: 5-7 6-4 6-4.

Ana Ivanovic squeezed in the company of Top 3 seeds – Vera Zvonareva, Andrea Petkovic, Agnieszka Radwanska - in the semifinals of the Mercury Insurance Open.

After starting with a 4-1 deficit against fourth-seeded Peng Shuai, Ivanovic won 11 of the next 13 games and finished the match by winning the last 14 points. Final score: 6-4 6-2. Her next opponent will be top seed Vera Zvonareva who, as expected, had a tough test against Sabine Lisicki. In a marathon third set which lasted more than an hour, Zvonareva saved 7 of 8 break points and finally defeated Lisicki 6-3 3-6 6-4 on the fifth match point.

Injured Agnieszka Radwanska recovered from a bagel in the first set and defeated Daniela Hantuchova 0-6 6-4 6-4. In the semifinals she will play Andrea Petkovic who took out first time WTA quarterfinalist Sloane Stephens 6-2 6-1. (photos courtesy of John Bolan)

Top seed Vera Zvonareva advanced to the quarterfinals of the Mercury Insurance Open, as did all the other seeded players in action on Thursday.

The world No.3 surged from a 2-3 deficit in the first set and won ten straight games to defeat Vera Dushevina 6-3 6-0. Zvonareva considers every opponent a challenge, but her next one is especially so. In the quarterfinals Zvonareva will play Sabine Lisicki, who has won 17 of her last 19 matches – the German played the semifinals of Stanford and Wimbledon, and won the title in Birmingham. Zvonareva leads their head-to-head 2-0. And one more thing when we're talking about Lisicki, if you haven't read it yet, do check out our recent in-depth analysis of the German's game.

Quarterfinal pairs (seedings in brackets): Vera Zvonareva (1) vs. Sabine Lisicki (12), Peng Shuai (4) vs. Ana Ivanovic (5), Daniela Hantuchova (8) vs. Agnieszka Radwanska (3), Sloane Stephens vs. Andrea Petkovic (2). (photo: sr_cranks)

Last week at Stanford Ana Ivanovic played her first match since Wimbledon and her first since partnering with coach Nigel Sears and lost to Ayumi Morita 6-3 7-5. Ivanovic blamed nerves for the early loss and said she was trying to impress her new coach.

At her very next tournament Ivanovic's opening match happened to be against the same opponent and the 23-year-old didn't repeat the disappointment. She came back from 5-0 down in the second set to advance to the third round of the Mercury Insurance Open. It was the first time in Ivanovic's career that she has done so. Let's also mention that Ivanovic's comeback took place after her on-court consultations with Sears. Final score: 6-1 7-6(5).

Alberta Brianti will be Ivanovic's opponent in the third round. Brianti upset tenth-seeded Flavia Pennetta in the first round. (photo: sr_cranks)

Women's tennis players dominate the Forbes magazine Top 10 list of the highest-paid female athletes and Maria Sharapova is the leader for the seventh year in a row. Forbes included earnings from salaries, prize money, endorsements, appearance fees and exhibitions between July 2010 and July 2011.

The 24-year-old Maria Sharapova did make the final of Wimbledon, but the greatest share in her $25 million fortune earned in the one-year period came from lucrative deals with Nike, Head, Evian, Clear Shampoo, Sony Ericsson, Tiffany, Tag Heuer, and Cole Haan.

World No.1 tennis player Caroline Wozniacki occupies the second position in the list with twice smaller earnings of $12.5 ($6 million from tournaments and $6.5 million from sponsors). The 21-year-old Wozniacki has deals with Adidas, Yonex, Compeed and Oriflame.

THE HIGHEST-PAID FEMALE ATHLETES

1. Maria Sharapova
2. Caroline Wozniacki
3. Danica Patrick (auto racing driver)
4. Venus Williams
5. Kim Clijsters
6. Serena Williams
7. Kim Yu-na (figure skater)
8. Li Na
9. Ana Ivanovic
10. Paula Creamer (golfer)

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