World No.2 Caroline Wozniacki has a chance to regain her No.1 ranking from Kim Clijsters if she reaches the semifinals of the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships and she's on a good way, having overcome Anna Chakvetadze after a first-round bye. Actually, if it can be perceived as a victory, because Chakvetadze collapsed during the match and retired right afterwards.

The 51st-ranked Chakvetadze lost the first set 6-1, but was up in the second, serving at 5-3 when she fell to the ground with her eyes rolling. Upon receiving medical attention, Chakvetadze wanted to continue the match, but had to give up after just one point. The Russian was later diagnosed with gastroenteritis. 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 »

China’s Li Na has retained her perfect match record this season by upsetting world No.1 and top seed Caroline Wozniacki and becoming the first Asian player in the Open Era to reach a Grand Slam final in singles.

The victory didn't come without excitement – Wozniacki took the first set as Li made 17 unforced errors to 7 winners, and then the Dane had a match point at 5-4 in the second set. The thing that makes tennis amazing is that it's never over til it's over – Li shot a risky forehand, saved the match point and eventually won the set 7-5. In the third set Li again had more unforced errors than winners, although only two more, but Wozniacki hit zero winners! Can't beat that!

The ninth-seeded Li won the match 3-6 7-5 6-3 and continued to write tennis history for China.

Li’s opponent in the championship match will be Kim Clijsters, who has played in the finals of three of four Grand Slams, although she was victorious only at the US Open. With a 6-3 6-3 victory over second seed Vera Zvonareva in the semis, third-seeded Clijsters closely approached her second straight Grand Slam title.  But before the Belgian holds the winner's trophy, she'll have to overcome Li, who defeated her this month in the Sydney final. As for overall career record, Clijsters leads Li 4-2.

Additional info: Reuters has a great factbox about the progress of Chinese tennis. (photos: Tidalist)

Top seed Caroline Wozniacki advanced to the Australian Open semifinals by taking out Francesca Schiavone, thus ensuring to remain on top of the WTA rankings. After winning the longest match in women’s Grand Slam history, Schiavone still had fuel in her tank and took the first set from Wozniacki 6-3. The Italian even earned a lead in the second set, 3-1, but from then on Wozniacki won five games in a row and came through 3-6 6-3 6-3.

Wozniacki will next play ninth seed Li Na, player who defeated her in the fourth round last year and later made big news by reaching her first Grand Slam semifinal. This year Li managed to repeat the feat, by beating Andrea Petkovic 6-2 6-4 in the quarters, and in quite a fashion – Li hasn't dropped more than six games in any of her matches at the Australian Open. Moreover, she came to the tournament without losing a match this season, which included a Sydney title earned by a victory over Kim Clijsters in the final.

Besides last year's Australian Open win over Wozniacki, Li has another 2010 victory over the Dane, again in Australia, in Sydney. Wozniacki defeated Li once, in Luxembourg, three years ago. Therefore, Li leads their head-to-head record 2-1. (photo: Tidalist)

Women's Tennis Blog is back from a two-week vacation, just in time for the Australian Open. We missed a lot of action leading up to the first Grand Slam of the season, but now we'll make sure not to miss a bit of the Australian major. So let's see what happened on Day 1.

Top seed and world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki, playing her first Grand Slam as a top-ranked player, won the first round against Gisela Dulko 6-3 6-4. The world No.52 Dulko scored 35 winners, but outweighed them with 38 unforced errors. Her conversion of break points was also bad – only 1 of 8.

Wozniacki’s opponent in the second round will be Vania King, who defeated Tamira Paszek to advance. Wozniacki and King have played each other only once so far, last year at Indian Wells, but it was an absolute battle as Wozniacki rallied from 4-1 deficit in the third set to get past her first match of the tournament.

Fourth seed Venus Williams is playing for the first time since the 2010 US Open semifinals and warming up is not an issue for her as in her opening match against Sara Errani she had 33 winners against 18 unforced errors, hit 8 aces and won 15 of 20 points at the net. Final score: 6-3 6-2.

Maria Sharapova, sporting her new Nike Oz Open Ace Dress with adjustable straps, started her match against Tamarine Tanasugarn nervously, as last year she also played the first round on Rod Laver Arena and lost to Maria Kirilenko badly. The 14th-seeded Sharapova didn’t let the history repeat, and although she lost her opening game to love, she beat Tanasugarn 6-1 6-3.

Another big name, Justine Henin, also advanced, but only after digging deep against always-tricky Sania Mirza. Seed No.11 Henin eventually managed to take control and win 5-7 6-3 6-1.

Many more seeds are also through: Yanina Wickmayer, Francesca Schiavone, Li Na, Victoria Azarenka, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Andrea Petkovic, Marion Bartoli, Dominika Cibulkova, Tsvetana Pironkova, and Kaia Kanepi. Daniela Hantuchova and Aravane Rezai suffered upsets – Rezai to Barbora Zahlavova Strycova, and Hantuchova to Regina Kulikova. (photos via WTA Tour and Nike)