Sabine Lisicki stormed through the final of the International-level Texas Tennis Open in just 49 minutes with a 6-2 6-1 win over Aravane Rezai.

The fifth-seeded Lisicki faced no break points and converted 4 of her 5 opportunities to break Rezai’s serve en route to her second title of the season, after Birmingham. Lisicki defeated Sania Mirza, Alberta Brianti, Kateryna Bondarenko, Irina-Camelia Begu, and lastly Aravane Rezai and in all those matches she lost just 13 games.

Despite the defeat, Rezai can celebrate her run to the finals. She had to qualify for the tournament and her result at the Texas Tennis Open marks a stop of her long slump. This year only at the Baku Cup Rezai won more than one match, while she exited 11 tournaments with no matches won. Rezai ended 2010 ranked 19th and now she's 114th. (photo via Yahoo)

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 »

As Marine of Tennis Notebook promised, she's extended her list of emotional WTA players, based on your suggestions. You're welcome to leave a comment on her guest post.

After the great feedback on the article "Top 5 emotional players in womens tennis", with many of you providing some perfect tips on other potential candidates, I have compiled a follow-up on the previous chart.

Dinara Safina

In any sport pressure of expectations and criticism can either make you or break you. Dinara’s story is unfortunately based on the second scenario. Hot temper runs in Safin family, just look at her older brother Marat who also could put on quite a "show" back in his playing days. Mental resilience is not Safina's strength. Especially her Grand Slam performances had shown how much the pressure can get to her head. Instead of a great triumph at several Grand Slam finals, fans saw her playing an unusually mediocre game after a series of great performances.

Victoria Azarenka

It is nothing more frustrating for the player than to lose a match which they started off in an impressive fashion or were very close to winning. There was a time when no lead was safe in Victoria’s hands and she often ended up in an emotional turmoil because of that. Sometimes venting helped because she raised the level of her performance, but sometimes she just broke a few rackets. Read more »

Thanks to our reader, Gregoire, I am learning about Aravane Rezai’s interview for Le Figaro entitled "Between me and my father", where the world No.21 talks for the first time about the issues that happened with her father during the Australian Open. Rezai didn’t entirely reveal the exact nature of the clash, despite journalist's persistence, but my understanding is that she wants more independence in making her own choices. The unwelcome situtation hit her emotionally and she needed some time to recover. Things seem to be settling down now.

Gregoire translated the interview for us:

Journalist: Aravane, what happened in Australia and why did you withdraw from the Fed Cup and the Open GDF-Suez?

Aravane Rezai: In Australia, I had some problems with my family. These are problems that happen in all families. I decided to take a break after this little family problem. For me it was a big earthquake in the head. So I decided not to play Fed Cup and the Open GDF-Suez. I want to apologize to the girls of the France team for not having been with them. They know what situation I’m dealing with. I really enjoyed representing my country, but being only 20% was impossible. I thank the captain (Editor’s note: Nicolas Escude) have respected my choice. My apologies also to GDF-SUEZ, which has always supported me as a partner. But this break was important to me, and it will allow me to come back stronger. I intend to return to the tournament in Monterrey, Mexico, if I have a wild card, or otherwise in Indian Wells.

Journalist: Why do you not you expressed earlier?

Aravane Rezai: I wanted to speak earlier, in Australia, but the WTA, my managers and the organization advised me not to do so because they thought I was not ready psychologically. I feel better today. I took a little rest and a lot of things fall into place. I am in the healing phase. Read more »

As our reader Brenda from Argentina asked for my overview of the 2011 Australian Open tennis fashion, here it is – a little bit of every brand, a little bit of good and bad.

Let's not save the best for the last. Let's start with by far the biggest fashion attention-grabber of the tournament – Venus Williams. The American played three matches (actually two, but she started her third one) and showcased the same number of outfits. The following one is the unofficial ugliest tennis outfit of the decade.

Venus, a graduate in fashion design and the person behind clothing line EleVen, made the outfits herself.

Believe it or not, Venus' dresses, or whatever they can be called, have gained a fan base. Whoever likes Venus' latest EleVen dresses, please leave a comment! I'm sure the world would love to hear your reasoning.

I'd like to continue with Nadia Petrova, the representative of Ellesse. Petrova has also had some colorful and imaginative styles (remember her US Open 2010 outfit that had stripes of all the possible colors?). There might be sound logic behind Petrova's support of EleVen.

Another fashion favorite is always Aravane Rezai. Even though this time her family drama attracted more attention than her dress, the Frenchwoman stayed faithful to the touch of crazy uniqueness. Although, she definitely can do better!

Let's move on to adidas – plenty of it. Read more »

A mysterious situation involving a member of Aravane Rezai’s family is hitting the WTA. There are no specific details, but the WTA banned someone from Rezai’s family from attending all WTA events, indefinitely, because of a "serious safety matter" and because they value the health and well-being of tennis players as top priority.

The WTA doesn’t want to reveal what exactly happened and who the person in question is. But, we do know that Australian police are investigating the alleged incident involving a 23-year-old woman on January 18. Pretty intriguing story.

Rezai was defeated in the first round of the Australian Open by Barbora Zahlavova Strycova, and according to her website, she withdrew from the women's doubles "for personal reasons". (source: Reuters, photo: © Neal Trousdale)

This is the fifth and the last part of our series featuring photos of female tennis players and their mothers. Here are the previous four parts: I, II, III and IV.

Marta, an account by profession, is the mother of two tennis stars, Agnieszka Radwanska (pictured above) and Urszula Radwanska.

Katarina Cibulkova is the mother of Dominika Cibulkova. Read more »

Aravane Rezai has earned the honor of being featured in our retrospections of WTA players' yearly outfits (thanks you, Marine, for this wonderful suggestion!). The Frenchwoman, even though a Top 20 player, doesn't have a well-known clothing sponsor, and neither is she famous for her great on-court style, but there is one thing that sets her apart – her crazy outfits with outrageous details that she actually wears perfectly! So, let the fun begin!

My research took me to the website which says that French clothing brand Schedya is responsible for Rezai's style. Schedya, owned by Rezai's friend, is "dedicated to cultural diversity". Schedya means "feeling good" in Persian and their logo, which can be read both in English from left to right and in Persian from right to left, is meant to signify the unity of Eastern and Western cultures. Read more »

Newly-acquired BMW driving skills were of no help to Aravane Rezai against Alisa Kleybanova in their opening match at the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions in Bali.

Together with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who was dominated by Ana Ivanovic on Thursday, Rezai practiced reversing, maneuvering and braking in the new wheels of BMW X5 in Bali, but on the tennis court it was Rezai’s opponent who was in control, beating her 6-1 6-2.

Rezai didn’t manage to defend her Bali title, but will always stay in the history of this new WTA tournament, as the winner of the inaugural edition of the Balinese event.

Kleybanova is looking for her third title in Asia this year, after Kuala Lumpur and Seoul. Her next opponent will be the winner of the match between Yanina Wickmayer and Daniela Hantuchova. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Women's tennis fashion is attracting a lot of attention, especially at Grand Slams when clothing sponsors and players try to showcase the best they have. So let's see what they've come up for the 2010 US Open.

I'll start with adidas, my overall favorite, as they always make outfits that have a glamorous touch but can also be easily worn at everyday practice.

Daniela Hantuchova and Ana Ivanovic are sporting pink adidas Women's Fall adilibria Dress.

Russians Dinara Safina and Maria Kirilenko are cled in adidas Barricade Top and Skort.

Caroline Wozniacki is looking great in Stella McCartney Tennis Performance Dress, contrasting nicely with Tennis Performance Bra Top. Elena Dementieva and Yonex once again failed to impress with design and fellow blogger C Note, who saw the dress live at the US Open, said that it even looks two sizes too big on Dementieva.

As usual for a Grand Slam, Maria Sharapova has two versions of a Nike dress – one for day matches and a darker piece for night. When we reviewed the dresses from the photos prior to the Open they looked somewhat questionable, but when seen on Sharapova they are a perfect match. You can see the dresses closer here and here.

Read more »