Doubles team of Gisela Dulko and Flavia Pennetta will have a chance to defend their WTA Championships title from Doha by becoming the third doubles partnership to qualify for the year-end event, which will take place in Istanbul this year.

Dulko and Pennetta won their first Grand Slam title this year at the Australian Open and recently they played two Premier finals: Tokyo and Beijing. Also, they held the No.1 doubles ranking between them for eight months.

One more team can qualify in doubles, Victoria Azarenka and Maria Kirilenko or Vania King and Yaroslava Shvedova. Kveta Peschke and Katarina Srebotnik and Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond are already in.

In singles there is also one spot left, which will be taken by either Agnieszka Radwanska or Marion Bartoli. Already qualified are: Caroline Wozniacki, Maria Sharapova, Petra Kvitova, Victoria Azarenka, Li Na, Vera Zvonareva and Samantha Stosur.

Additional info: Pennetta recently at the China Open became only the second woman in history who defeated No.1 players in both singles and doubles on the same day. (photos: Ralf Reinecke)

If you visit Maria Sharapova’s official website you will see some new Nike clothes being advertised, and among them is a V-neck dress in the shades ranging from turquoise to blue/gray which I expect the Russian to wear at the TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships in Istanbul, Turkey, starting October 25.

The dress features asymmetrical lines and pleats on the skirt and a yellow Nike logo on the chest.

The official name of the item is Nike Women's Winter Maria Rival Knit Dress and it retails at $110.

Last week at the China Open Flavia Pennetta defeated singles and doubles No.1s on the same day – Caroline Wozniacki and Liezel Huber – thus joining the legendary Steffi Graf as the only other player in history to achieve the feat.

In the Friday's Beijing singles quarterfinals, Pennetta upset top-ranked Wozniacki, and then, together with Gisela Dulko, beat the doubles team of Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond in the semifinals.

Graf defeated the No.1-ranked player in singles and doubles by winning over Martina Navratilova in Berlin, in 1986, when Navratilova was on top of both the singles and doubles rankings.

Moreover, only five players in history managed to beat both the No.1s at the same tournament: Steffi Graf in 1986, Jana Novotna in 1996, Lindsay Davenport in 2008, Venus Williams in 2009, and now Flavia Pennetta. (source: WTA Tour, photo: sr_cranks)

Vera Zvonareva and Samantha Stosur have occupied the sixth and seventh spot in the draw of the $4,900,000 TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships, which means that only one more player can qualifier for the singles competition and that will be either Agnieszka Radwanska or Marion Bartoli.

In order for Bartoli to qualify, she would need to win both Osaka and Moscow and Radwanska would have to lose before the quarterfinals of Moscow. The player who doesn’t take the eighth spot will join Andrea Petkovic as an alternate.

This will be Zvonareva’s fifth time to play the elite year-end Championships, while Stosur played last year for the first time.

Besides the two new additions to the draw, Caroline Wozniacki, Maria Sharapova, Petra Kvitova, Victoria Azarenka and Li Na had already qualified.

For the past three years the prestigious event was held in Doha, and this year it will take place in Istanbul for the first time. The 2010 champion was Kim Clijsters, whose injuries have prevented her for playing since August. (photos: sr_cranks)

World No.12 Agnieszka Radwanska defeated Andrea Petkovic 7-5 0-6 6-4 in the final of the $4,500,000 China Open and extended her perfect record against the German to 5-0. It's Radwanska's second big title in two weeks, after last week's Tokyo event with the prize money of $2,050,000. And that's not all, during the US Open series, Radwanska won the Carlsbad tournament and played the semifinals of Toronto.

There were 15 service breaks in the match of 28 games. After winning the first set that lasted more than half of the match, Radwanska won only nine points in the second set and was bageled. The Pole came back in the decider, opening it with a break and later she was the one to have the decisive break for a 5-4 lead before serving out the victory. It should be pointed out, though, that Petkovic won more points in the match, 101 to Radwanska's 100.

To win her seventh career title and third this season, the 22-year-old Radwanska defeated Zheng Jie, Sofia Arvidsson, Ana Ivanovic, Flavia Pennetta, and in the end Andrea Petkovic, who was playing the greatest final of her career. Radwanska won an astonishing $775,500 and 1000 ranking points in Beijing, which will take her back to Top 10.

Radwanska has won 22 of her last 25 matches. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Dinara Safina's brother Marat recently stated how his sister's back is in such a bad state that she should forget tennis and look for living a regular life.

She must continue with her therapy, but would not be able to play again.

He also said that she was about to announce her retirement. However, the young Russian is denying her brother's claims and on her Twitter account she's saying that a retirement is still not her chosen option, she just doesn't know yet when she will return.

My sweet tweeties, I didn't make yet any official announcement… Give me please some time and I'll let you all know… Right now I want to take of my back, on Tuesday I'm having a treatment… Once I decide something you'll be the first to know I promise! Love you all.

Safina announced an indefinite break from tennis in May, while she hasn't played since April in Madrid. (photo by our reader Tony)

Andrea Petkovic and Agnieszka Radwanska will face each other in the final of the China Open and it's not only a big moment in their careers because it's a Premier-level tournament, the winner of the match will return to No.10 in the rankings. Also, they are both contenders for the three remaining berths in the WTA championships draw in Istanbul.

The ninth-seeded Petkovic quickly defeated Monica Niculescu 6-2 6-0 and reached her biggest career final, but she far from underestimated her qualifier opponent, who had upset fourth seed Li Na in the first round.

"My opponent had a totally different style than all the other girls. I don't think I had a match like this the whole season," Petkovic said after taking all seven of Niculescu's service games. "So I prepared differently. I put my two coaches on the other side of the court and made them play slice all the time. So I think I was quite prepared for what was waiting for me here today."

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When China Open defending champion Caroline Wozniacki took the first set from Flavia Pennetta 6-3, the Dane looked to be on a good way to progress to the semifinals, but the Italian fired back by bageling Wozniacki in the second set. After just 20 minutes into the decider, Wozniacki found herself trailing 4-1. Later she had her chances and was two points away from victory leading 6-5, but Pennetta won the game and the subsequent tiebreaker.

Pennetta had lost all five of their previous encounters.

The 3-6 6-0 7-6(2) win over the world No.1, who’s occupied the position for a year now, booked Pennetta a clash with No.11 seed Agnieszka Radwanska, whose opponent, Ana Ivanovic, retired.

Ana Ivanovic recorded three solid victories en route to the China Open quarterfinals, against Kimiko Date-Krumm, Svetlana Kuznetsova, and Vera Zvonareva, having lost just ten games to reach the final eight, but a left low back injury sustained in Tokyo last week forced her to retire in the second set against Radwanska and the Pole is through to the semis.

"I have been doing lots of treatments on it, but it hasn't been really getting much better," said Ivanovic about the injury due to which she left the tournament while trailing 6-3 3-2.

Radwanska had a milestone victory last week at the Toray Pan Pacific Open. (photos: sr_cranks)

Ana Ivanovic asked for a wildcard for the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions and the organizers were glad to make her the first wildcard pick. The Serb played the tournament last year and won the title in the final against Alisa Kleybanova, who is now battling a serious illness of Hodgkin's lymphoma.

The $600,000 Bali tournament gathers eight best performers of the season from International-level events. November 3-6 this year will see the third edition of the tournament. The inaugural Bali was won by Aravane Rezai. (photo: sr_cranks)

Vera Zvonareva is one of those quiet, low-key players, but that doesn't mean she's shy of taking her clothes off for the camera. The third-ranked Russian is actually the sole tennis player among 22 athletes featured in the new ESPN Body Issue.

You can see the photo as well as a behind-the-scenes video from the shoot at my blogging friend DeShawn Besabella's website.

Talking about Zvonareva posing, do you know of these pics  for her apparel sponsor K-Swiss? She may not be showing a lot of skin, but the photos are funnily weird. (photo: sr_cranks)