Third seed Agnieszka Radwanska set up an anticipated second-round clash with Venus Williams by dominating Bojana Jovanovski in her opening match at Roland Garros 2012. Unchallenged in the encounter with Jovanovski, Radwanska won a staggering 90% of points on her first serve, compared to her opponent's mere 37%. In all the other departments the Pole was also considerably better, only her first serve percentage was just 1% higher than Jovanovski's, 61% to Jovanovski's 60%. Final score: 6-1 6-0.

Venus is leading Agnieszka 5-2 in their career meetings, but their only meeting in 2012 the Pole won, in the quarterfinals of Miami. On clay they played only once, in Rome 2009, and Venus was victorious then. Also, Venus had a shaky start to this year's Roland Garros, toughing out a 4-6 6-1 6-3 victory over Argentine teenager Paula Ormaechea, ranked 120th.

Top seed and Radwanska's fiercest opponent this season, Victoria Azarenka, had to dig deep to overcome Alberta Brianti in the first round on Monday. (photos: Ralf Reinecke)

Just days before Roland Garros, we have two more titlists at the tournaments leading up to the claycourt Grand Slam – Agnieszka Radwanska and Francesca Schiavone.

Radwanska may not be a top contender for the Roland Garros title, vulnerable against big hitters on clay, but now that she's won the Brussels Open and taking into account the well-known fact that this season she's been defeated only by world No.1 Victoria Azarenka and Petra Cetkovska, the Pole has only reinforced her image of a hot 2012 player. It's true that Radwanska faced no Top 20 opponents en route to the Brussels title (her highest-ranked competitor was world No.25 Kaia Kanepi in the semifinals), but still it's always an achievement to take home some hardware. In the Brussels final against Simona Halep, the Romanian was serving for the set when the top-seeded Radwanska bounced back to win nine straight games for a 7-5 6-0 victory. Read more »

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Will it be red hot Maria Sharapova or Serena Williams? Once clumsy on clay, Sharapova is now a definite favorite for the Roland Garros trophy. With Stuttgart and Rome titles this season, Sharapova has raised her record in clay finals to 5-0 and she's 11-0 on dirt this season. Also, four of her last five titles have come on clay. The 2002 French Open champion Serena is on a 17-match winning streak on clay, the second best clay streak this century, and even though she withdrew in the semifinals of Rome, she's expected to be healthy for Roland Garros. Just like Sharapova, Serena won two titles on clay this year, in Charleston and Madrid.

World number one Victoria Azarenka has had a stellar season, with a 35-3 win-loss record, four titles, including her first Grand Slam at the Australian Open, and two finals in eight tournaments she played in 2012. As for the clay season, she played the finals of Stuttgart and Madrid and beat three former French Open champions on the way (Svetlana Kuznetsova, Ana Ivanovic and Li Na) before losing to the hottest players of the moment, to Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. Azarenka then withdrew from Rome after comfortably winning her opener, saying that she didn't even want to enter the tournament in the first place, but was forced by the pressure of WTA rules. This will be the first time Azarenka is top seed at a Grand Slam. Read more »

Agnieszka Radwanska has still not defeated Victoria Azarenka this year, but has finally lost to a player other than the Belarusian! The Pole entered the second-round match of the Internazionali BNL d'Italia with a 32-6 win-loss record in 2012 and all the six losses came at the hands of top-ranked Azarenka, who was again lurking in her half of the draw. However, Radwanska escaped the unpleasant taste of losing to her nemesis again, by exiting the tournament in an opening match, falling to Petra Cetkovska 6-4 4-6 6-1.

After the match, Cetkovska praised Radwanska's intelligent game, saying that it was her ability to perform better in important moments that decided the match. Radwanska, Dubai and Miami champion this season, was half-hearted, exhausted and injured:

Losing at the beginning of the tournament is disappointing. I'm tired from all the matches I've been playing and I have some problems with my back. I'm going to take a few days off then play Brussels. I still have some matches before Paris.

Radwanska is now actually 0-4 in head-to-head against the 28th-ranked Cetkovska, but this is the first time that the 27-year-old Czech beat her as a Top 10 player, even more so, Radwanska is now world No.3. Three of those four defeats to Cetkovska happened in the last 12 months. (via WTA Tour, photo: Ralf Reinecke)

In the Madrid Open quarterfinals, ninth seed Serena Williams cruised past second seed Maria Sharapova 6-1 6-3 for her sixth straight win against a Top 2 player and her seventh straight win against Sharapova. Serena’s opponent in the semifinals will be Lucie Hradecka, whose dream run continued when after third seed Petra Kvitova and Ekaterina Makarova she upset fifth seed Samantha Stosur 7-6(8) 7-6(6), hitting 19 aces in a match that had no breaks in regular games, as Hradecka saved four of four break points and Stosur one of one.

Top seed Victoria Azarenka put her dissatisfaction with the slippery blue clay aside and found a way to beat Li Na despite losing the first set in which the Chinese played "unbelievable", as Azarenka said. Final score 3-6 6-3 6-3. Azarenka’s opponent in the semis will be fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska who beat Varvara Lepchenko 6-4 6-4. Infamously, Azarenka and Radwanska have played each other five times this year (and it's only May!), and each time Azarenka won. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)