World No.21 Ana Ivanovic won the French Open title only three years ago and reached the top of the WTA rankings then, but the Serb has been struggling to find that very game ever since, and except a few flashes of form and good results, the overall cloud surrounding her has been pretty gray. Today she lost in the first round of the French Open to world No.64 Johanna Larsson of Sweden 7-6(3) 0-6 6-2 (last year she lost in the second round, and the year before in the fourth).

After wasting four set points in the first set and losing that set in a tiebreak, Ivanovic won seven games in a row to find herself with a 1-0 lead in the decider, but then her world crumbled.

"I wish I knew (what went wrong since 2008). I try to look back and see what I've done then and to do the same things. I'm just trying to work it out," Ivanovic said.

I'd like to mention that a lot of people in our poll actually voted for Ivanovic to go all the way to the title – she either has a lot of people who believe in her, or a very strong fan base who is there no matter what. In today's tennis everything is possible, and Ivanovic winning the French Open would not be that much of a surprise under the current circumstances, it's just that she has uncontrollable ups and downs.

Maria Sharapova and Kim Clijsters are safely through to the second round. Sharapova, who came to Paris on the wings of her Rome title, defeated Mirjana Lucic 6-3 6-0 without facing a break point. Clijsters proved her form after a two-month long absence with a 6-2 6-3 win over Anastasiya Yakimova in the first round of the French Open.

Victoria Azarenka and Li Na also won their openers. Virginie Razzano, who was playing in tribute of her late fiance Stephane Vidal, lost in the first round to Jarmila Gajdosova 6-3 6-1. Razzano will play doubles with Alize Cornet. (photo: sr_cranks)

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 »

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..

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)

Members of Serbian Fed Cup and David Cup teams were handed over diplomatic passports by Serbian Foreign Minister, Vuk Jeremic, during the Serbia Open ATP event in Belgrade. WTA players Bojana Jovanovski and Ana Jovanovic were present at the ceremony, beside their male colleagues Janko Tipsarevic, Nenad Zimonjic, Viktor Troicki and Novak Djokovic. The best two Serbian WTA players, Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic, did not attend the official event, but they will receive the passports. Read more »

As you know, our reader Marine has recently started her own tennis blog, Tennis Notebook, and she already guest posted here on Women's Tennis Blog. Here article called Top 5 emotional players in women's tennis attracted a lot of comments and was even referred to in one of the most prestigious Serbian newspapers. Now Marine would like to share with you her experience from last weekend's highly dramatic Fed Cup tie in Bratislava, Serbia vs. Slovakia, especially marked by the doubles match which the Serbian team won 2-6 7-5 9-7 after 3 hours 17 min and a 6-2 5-1 and 30-0 deficit.

As I recently announced I went to see the encounter between Serbia and Slovakia so I wanted to share some of my impressions of the action with you.

The first little adventure was actually getting my tickets which I carefully booked a month before. How big was my surprise when I realized that I was supposed to pick them up within a certain time limit and 16th April they were no longer accessible! So the drama started even before the actual match did. I was frantically looking for help because I did not travel from as far as UK to see nothing at all. Fortunately the help came soon and a few minutes afterwards I was sitting comfortably at the arena which was quickly filling up with excited fans.

On the day one I watched both encounters in full. I preferred the match between Dominika Cibulkova vs. Bojana Jovanovski (4-6 6-3 6-1) not only because it was Dominika who won it but also because from that point I realized that the players came out to show the fans their best tennis. I loved Dominika’s fighting spirit and enthusiasm and Bojana’s performance was great too, she is on a good way to follow in JJ’s and Ana’s footsteps.

The encounter between Daniela Hantuchova and Ana Ivanovic (2-6 4-6) was exciting although quite one-sided because Ana started to dominate soon in the first set and since then never let Daniela steal her momentum. Read more »