The 2012 has gained its full swing with the Australian Open, and our loyal contributor and reader John Bolan would like to share his predictions of how the Top 10 rankings will look like at the end of the season. Don't forget to share your Top 10 picks in the comments, as John will send the person whose predictions turn out to be the closest to the actual 2012 year-end Top 10 a picture with an autograph of a Top 10 player. Nice incentive!

Once again, it is time to pick the Top 10 players in the order they will finish on December 31, 2012. We have had a few weeks to observe which players have played well this year. Logic, injuries and where the players finished for 2011 are the main criteria used to make these picks.

My pick for number 1 in 2012 is Victoria Azarenka (I also picked Victoria for number 1 in 2011). She squeaked by Maria Sharapova for third place last year, but is definitely a rising young star whose time has come. Maria is my pick for the runner-up spot – number 2. Let’s hope she stays healthy for the remainder of the year.

Three players who have already been injured this year are Kim Clijsters, Serena Williams and Andrea Petkovic. Do we take a chance and put any of them in the Top 10? Kim is my #3 pick and Serena #4. Although Andrea is the most sensational player in women’s tennis, she is seriously injured and will miss months on the tour in 2012. Read more »

Andrea Petkovic has a lower back stress fracture, which forced her to have an injury timeout during her 7-5 6-4 loss to Agnieszka Radwanska in the second round of the Apia International Sydrey, and will not play the upcoming Australian Open.

The tenth-ranked Petkovic would have been seeded No.10 at the Grand Slam. Last year the top German played the quarterfinals of three Grand Slams, including the Australian Open.

Petkovic’s withdrawal came just after Venus Williams confirmed she would have to skip the tournament due to her Sjogren's syndrome. (photo: sr_cranks)

Another fashion retrospection, another first-time honor. Women's Tennis Blog's apparel overviews date back to 2007 and on Sunday I featured Nike representative Petra Kvitova for the first time. Now let's have a look at one more hot player of 2011, new Top 10 member – Adidas-clad Andrea Petkovic.

We opened this season's fashion retrospections with Caroline Wozniacki and Adidas by Stella McCartney, but let's check out a more sporty Adidas – the colorful Barricade.

Petkovic opened the season with a runner-up finish to Petra Kvitova at Brisbane in an all-pink ensemble, and continued it by reaching the Australian Open quarterfinals switching two outfits from the Barricade line which was all about the refreshing green and red, and white. Have a look at my 2011 Australian Open fashion focus, Justine Henin and Maria Kirilenko also looked great wearing the line. Read more »

On Monday our guest poster and stats lover Omair dug us into the numbers of his detailed analysis about the number of wins year-end Top 10 players scored over Top 10 players in 2011 and their best tournaments. Now it's time for Part 2 and a different perspective – results of the Top 10 stars approached through their losses.

First have a look at the table showing average rank of players who defeated each of the year-end Top 10 players and the lowest-ranked player to beat year-end Top 10 players during 2011. 

Vera Zvonareva needs to be mentioned here for her consistency as she is the only one of the Top 10 who was not beaten by a player ranked outside Top 35, while the rest of her colleagues from this elite group were beaten at least twice. The lowest-ranked player to defeat Zvonareva during 2011 was Tsvetana Pironkova, ranked 33rd (seeded 32nd) during the third round of Wimbledon.

Of Zvonareva's 22 losses only three came at the hands of players ranked between 30 and 35 and interestingly they came at the hands of players ranked 31, 32, and 33. Also, a total of only three losses came at the hands of players ranked between 21 and 29, while the rest of 16 came at the hands of Top 20 players. Average rank of Zvonareva's conquerors was 15, while the average rank of the conquerors of all the remaining Top 10 players was not even within Top 20.

Victoria Azarenka also needs to be mentioned here, because only five of her 17 losses came at the hands of players ranked outside Top 20, and of those five losses two came at the hands of Serena Williams who had low ranking due to her health problems and lack of play. Average rank of Azarenka's conquerors in 2011 was 23.

Read more »

Off-season is time for looking back on the tennis year behind, and we're doing that by our reflections and analysis, but it's also the time of preparation for the next year and sports designers are already working hard, actually numerous models that the WTA stars are expected to wear in 2012 have already leaked.

Maria Sharapova is expected to go for white with green details for the Australian section of the season. And that's not all – here you can see even more new Nike clothes.

As for Adidas, this week the brand launched their new Barricade 7.0 shoes and in the promo Andrea Petkovic showcased several pieces from the Adidas' new collection, in purple, light blue and red. I was confirmed that those are the designs we'll be seeing on the courts in 2012. Read more »

We can soon start calling our reader Omair a stats expert. After seeing his "Comparative analysis of Top 10 players and their performance at big tournaments in 2011" received so well, Omair eagerly rushed to thrill us with more analysis, this time focusing on the year-end Top 10 players and the ranking of opponents that they beat in 2011 (Part 1) and on the ranking of opponents that beat them (Part 2). Let the tables do the talking!

The table above shows the number of tournaments where a year-end Top 10 player defeated more than one Top 10 player. Petra Kvitova tops here with three tournaments, at two of which she defeated three or more Top 10 players en route to the title (Madrid and WTA Championships). World number one Caroline Wozniacki is the only Top 10 player who did not beat two Top 10 players in a single tournament.

Let's continue with tables showing tournaments won by each Top 10 player and tournaments where the player (though did not end up winning the event) ended up beating two or more Top 10 players.

Read more »

Adidas' experts spent 2,500 hours colleborating with professional and semi-professional atheletes in order to figure out what type of shoe would best fit their needs and this month Adidas is launching the redesigned Barricade 7.0, which have undergone the greatest change in 11 years.

World No.10 Andrea Petkovic is promoting the women's Barricade shoe, with new features such as much less weight, a more elegant design and a softer forefoot flex:

In my rehabilitation from a torn ACL I had to work on my leg strength and stability. It showed me how important stability is for a powerful game. The Barricade gives me the stability I need.

As you can see, Andrea is also wearing new Adidas clothes. I suppose it's a collection for 2012.

In the beginning of the year our loyal contributor John Bolan made a prediction of how Top 10 would look like at the end of the season and a lot of readers presented their Top 10 picks in the comments. Now that the tennis 2011 has ended, I thought it was perfect time to ask John to do a comparison of the prediction and the actual season-ending rankings. He was eager to accept my proposal. Continue reading to see the shocking changes over the last 11 months, such as Justine Henin and Dinara Safina not playing any more and Petra Kvitova, who was never even mentioned, joining the elite big time.

On January 8, 2011 the Women’s Tennis Blog published my article "Who will be Top 10 players at the end of 2011?".  My picks were listed with reasons why I chose them. Many fans used the comment section to submit their picks. Now that the year is over, let’s find out how we did.

Most of us only named about 5 out of the 10 Top finishers. The reason that we did so poorly was the injury factor. Five of the top players were injured for most of the year – Justin Henin, Kim Clijsters, Dinara Safina, Serena Williams and Venus Williams. Most of us had at least 3 of these injured stars on our Top 10 list. The most difficult factor in picking the Top 10 is trying to guess who will not be able to play a full season and 2011 was an unusual year with so many of the top stars injured for so long.

No one picked the number 2 finisher – Petra Kvitova. Only one person picked Marion Bartoli and only one picked Andrea Petkovic. These omissions hurt the overall accuracy of our picks. Read more »

This blog likes to give its faithful readers an opportunity to contribute and show their take on women's tennis, so here's Omair's analysis of our year-end Top 10 players and their 2011 results at Grand Slams, Premier tournaments and the WTA Championships. Have a look at what the numbers suggest.

Just to note, in the following tables CW is Caroline Wozniacki, PK is Petra Kvitova, VA is Victoria Azarenka, MS is Maria Sharapova, LN is Li Na, SS is Samantha Stosur, VZ is Vera Zvonareva, AR is Agnieszka Radwanska, MB is Marion Bartoli and AP is Andrea Petkovic.

WIN-LOSS RECORD OF THE YEAR-END TOP 10 PLAYERS AGAINST EACH OTHER IN 2011

The win-loss record is in itself self-explanatory, showing who has been the most dominant player - Petra Kvitova. Please also note the number of wins by a player against Top 5 players, especially for Top 5 players.

OVERALL WIN-LOSS RECORD IN 2011

Kvitova is not the leader only in the percentage of wins over fellow season-ending Top 10 players, but is also the leader in yearly win-loss record overall.

2011 GRAND SLAM WINS OF TOP 10 PLAYERS

Read more »

Andrea Petkovic, or better said Petkorazzi, released a new video on YouTube revealing five things we didn't know about her. The clip is hilarious and even though I will tell you what Petkorazzi's secret five things are, you have to watch how she illustrated them.

Here are Petkovic's untold abilities/disabilities, embarrassing things from the past, weaknesses and dreams:

1. Can sing an entire Tarkan song
2. Doesn't like golf because she sucks at it
3. Used to adore the Backstreet Boys
4. Would rather be a drummer in a rock band than a tennis player
5. Has a weakness for pretty boys

The world No.10 Petkovic failed to win her maiden Premier WTA title this month in Beijing. Her next tournament are the year-end Championships in Istanbul, where she's an alternate. She was supposed to play this week's Luxembourg but her knee is not perfectly healthy.