Ana Ivanovic has a chance to celebrate her 24th birthday by defending her Bali title, having advanced to the final by defeating Nadia Petrova despite a set point against her in the second set. Her opponent in the title match will be Anabel Medina Garrigues whose second straight opponent retired from the match injured. Hopefully she will not bring bad luck to Ivanovic, who has already had an injury scare because of a fall in Bali quarterfinals. Read more »

Top seed Marion Bartoli retired with an ankle injury soon after the start of the third set of her opening match against Anabel Medina Garrigues at the Commonweath Bank Tournament of Champions in Bali. And that wasn't the only blow to the tournament on Friday. An earthquake hit the exotic island so much that the press conference had to be held outside the tournament facility. Luckily it happened after the matches were completed and spectators had already left.

"I’ve never done a press conference like this before," said Daniela Hantuchova who lost her quarterfinal to Sabine Lisicki 7-5 6-2. "It was quite frightening, but we seem to be okay." Read more »

Anastasia Myskina is pregnant again, for the third time in four years and the baby is a boy.

The 30-year-old already has two sons: Zhenya born in April 2008 and another baby boy born in August 2010. She is expected to give birth to her third child in March 2012.

As reported by Craig Gabriel for the Fed Cup, Myskina says that her two sons are very different – the older one is more attached to her, while the younger one is more with his father. Myskina laughingly added:

The next one is also a boy. I have like a soccer or hockey team. No tennis, for men I don’t think it’s a good thing!

There has been a lot of mystery and controversy regarding the identity of the children's father (if it is even the same father). Also, I still haven't heard the name of her second son. Do any of you have more info? It would be highly appreciated. Read more »

Serena Williams now has a place in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. in a new show celebrating successful African-Americans from various fields. "The Black List" opens Friday and features 50 photographs from Timothy Greenfield-Sanders' project that also featured a 2008 HBO film.

Here is a clip from the movie, where Williams talks about how awkward she often feels in the tennis world where most people around her are white (especially when she travels to Russia) and also explains how her dedicated family helped her cross all the boundaries and financial shortages to become the legend that she is now. About her tennis game, Serena mentions how she’s frustrated by the fact that people always point out only the power of her game and fail to acknowledge the strategy and mental part. (via Beyond the Baseline)

Action began at the season-ending tournament of Bali, and unlike at the let's call it Premier season-ending tournament of Istanbul, the Bali eight-women draw doesn't have the round-robin format preceding the semifinals, but rather regular quarterfinals, semifinals and the title match. Therefore, after the first day of action we already have one semifinal pair: Ana Ivanovic and Nadia Petrova.

Ivanovic served up a 6-3 6-3 victory over Roberta Vinci, the player with whom she made cookies for charity as a pre-tournament activity to raise funds for UNICEF's education projects in Asia-Pacific. In her seventh career match with Vinci, defending champion Ivanovic was aggressive and played well. Read more »

As Tennis Served Fresh reports the news from TMZ, Serena Williams' assistant suspected a possible burglar of a person from an unspecified tennis association coming to test Serena for drugs and the tennis star got so scared that she fled "to a panic room inside her LA mansion". Serena has a panic room, if I understand well?

The assistant saw the suspected intruder on security cameras and called 911 around 6 am last Wednesday. When police came, they realized it was a false alarm.

It's strange that Serena's representatives are not making any comments and it's even more awkward that Serena's made no mention of the scary experience on Twitter. (photo: Tennis Canada)

Petra Kvitova is the hottest player of the moment with her WTA Championships title and the year can also be considered hers, as she won Wimbledon as one of her six titles in 2011. The Czech is now enjoying her career-high ranking of number two and the next season is expected to be more than bright for this 21-year-old. Now let's see how little Kvitova was handling the tennis racquet 17 years ago.

Petr, thank you for telling me about the video! Read more »

During her appearance at an Oriflame event in Belgrade, smiling Jelena Jankovic eagerly talked to the press and revealed that her relationship will Montenegrin waterpolo player Mladjan Janovic is still doing strong.

"I am always happy and in love," said Jankovic. When asked whether she was still with Mladjan, Jankovic replied: "Yes, of course."

Jelena and Mladjan have been dating since 2008. They met at the Beijing Olympics.

The Oriflame event, which took place at a Belgrade theater, was a contest for the 2011 Best Mother and Daughter, and Jelena and her mother Snezana were the faces of the event. Also, Jelena used the opportunity to wish her mother a happy birthday and presented her with a chocolate cake and a flower basket during the evening. (source: Blic, photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Sabine Lisicki is relieving her jetlag in Bali by painting pottery which will be auctioned off for charity. In her blog for the WTA Tour, the German reveals that her parents are also in Bali. Lisicki's mother Elisabeth, a painting and ceramics artist, enjoyed doing art with her daughter, while father Richard was busy taking the pictures for Sabine’s Facebook page. Read more »