The Czech Republic successfully defended the Fed Cup trophy, dominating the Serbian team 2-0 on Saturday, and even though on Sunday Ana Ivanovic gave Serbia a slight ray of hope by beating the highest-ranked Czech Petra Kvitova in the first match of the day, Lucie Safarova's rocking winners against Jelena Jankovic finished the job for the Czechs in Prague. Read more »

The Czech Republic made a strong start to their Fed Cup title defense with two comfortable victories over Serbia, whose chances for maiden Fed Cup crown look very slim.

Lucie Safarova and Ana Ivanovic took the court first. The match was opened by Ivanovic holding her serve after fending off a break point, but that was as much of a lead the Serb had in the match, as Safarova went up a break in the third game, and even though Ivanovic leveled to 2-2, another break in the seventh game sealed the Serb's fate. Safarova continued her solid game in the second set and beat Ivanovic, who was coming back from a hip injury sustained in Moscow, 6-4 6-3 for the fourth straight time. Read more »

Today at the China Open we had action in the second and third round. Second seed Maria Sharapova was successful in the second round, cruising past Sorana Cirstea 6-2 6-2, and will next face Polona Hercog, who climbed back from a 5-1 deficit in the third set against Ekaterina Makarova. As for the battles for the quarterfinal spot, defending champion Agnieszka Radwanska, seeded third, and seed No.9 Marion Bartoli came through, while the top Serbian sisters both went out in straight sets.

Agnieszka Radwanska needed three sets and overcame six drops of serve to get past qualifier Lourdes Dominguez Lino 2-6 6-1 6-4 and reach the quarterfinals where she will face a Chinese player – either Li Na or Peng Shuai.

For the second week in a row at a Premier-level event, Marion Bartoli defeats Julia Goerges. In the previous round, Goerges scored a great win against Sam Stosur, but when facing Bartoli she again lost, this time 6-3 7-6(2).

The match between seed No.11 Ana Ivanovic and Romina Oprandi was steady until 3-3 in the first set, but the former world No.1 lost her service game then and slowly but surely she saw herself losing, piling up unforced errors and bad serves. Jelena Jankovic put up a bigger challenge to her opponent, Carla Suarez Navarro, but she wasted a 5-2 lead in the first set and held no service games in the second set (she won just 25% of points on her serve) to lose 7-5 6-4.

So far only one China Open quarterfinal pair is determined: Marion Bartoli vs. Carla Suarez Navarro. The rest will be known after Thursday's matches. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Both Radwanska sisters are enjoying the best years of their careers, and even though the older Agnieszka has been a fixture in the Top 10 for years and is now enjoying her best year so far with three WTA titles and a Grand Slam final, the 21-year-old Urszula is approaching the heights.

Before Tokyo, at back-to-back International-level tournaments in Tashkent and Guangzhou, Urszula, currently at a career-high No.36 ranking, reached the semifinals, which she lost to eventual champions, and this week at the $2,168,400 Tokyo she’s already earned twice as much money and the same number of points as in each of the International events by beating seed No.11 and former No.1 Ana Ivanovic in the second round. Ivanovic was just two games away from victory, but lost eight of the next 10 games and fell to Urszula 3-6 6-4 6-2, piling up a total of 12 double faults.

Fifth seed Angelique Kerber, who beat Japanese No.1 Ayumi Morita 6-3 6-4, is Urszula’s opponent in the third round. (photo: sr_cranks)

After Grand Slams, you are used to our contributor Omair giving unofficial titles to players based on their performances, and for the recently-finished US Open he did the same, but with a little twist, he gave names to players inspired by animated movies. We hope you'll like it!

SERENA WILLIAMS – RANGO

Serena not only won her 15th major, but proved again that she is not done yet with tennis by winning the second straight Grand Slam and the Olympics in between. Serena lost a total of 19 games en route to the US Open final, where she was pushed hard by Victoria Azarenka, who even served for the championship in the third set, but Serena showed her superior class and experience to bring her opponent back to earth and win her fourth US Open title. In doing so, Serena showed everyone that "No man can walk out of his own story", just like Rango.

VICTORIA AZARENKA – VECTOR

Vector from "Despicable Me" tried in every way to let Gru down, but in the end he lost and Gru won. Azarenka gave everything she had, but she came up short to one of the best players in tennis history. Don’t take it negatively. By giving Azarenka the title of Vector, I don’t refer to the vicious methods Vector used in the movie, I am thinking of the positive side of it, that she fought with her whole heart and body, but in the end she had to satisfy herself with the runner-up trophy.

MARIA SHARAPOVA – TANGLED

Sharapova was not at her best in her last three matches, yet she never gave up, fighting hard to stay alive in the fourth round against Nadia Petrova, then in the quarters against Marion Bartoli, and then in the semis she finally got tangled in her service demons and succumbed to the pressure of Victoria Azarenka. Read more »