Besides doing yearly fashion retrospections for specific WTA players, Women's Tennis Blog is famous for reviewing outfits for every Grand Slam. The Australian Open is entering its second week and the time is just right for us to have a closer look at what the players are wearing. Last year Venus Williams grabbed all the attention with her EleVen designs, but the American is sadly absent this time. In 2012 the spotlight is more evenly distributed and brands such as Nike, Adidas and Fila are leading the pack.

Caroline Wozniacki’s love life is booming, at least its online representation suggests that, and her fashion designer Stella McCartney opted for the color of passion for the world No.1’s Australian Open. Wozniacki accessorized the red dress with a heart-shaped Danish flag pendant that her boyfriend Rory McIlroy gave her for Christmas.

Adidas Adizero used a shade of red for their predominantly peach dress worn by Ana Ivanovic, Daniela Hantuchova and Sorana Cirstea.

Serena Williams is wearing a blue Nike dress with wide tank straps and pleated bottom.

Read more »

Playing her first tournament since a four-month abdominal injury lay-off, Kim Clijsters had to give up her Brisbane International semifinal against Daniela Hantuchova because of a left hip injury, thus handing the Slovak her second straight uncompleted victory, as Serena Williams gave her a walkover in their quarterfinal due to an ankle problem.

Clijsters won the tiebreak 7-4 and already in that first set she felt stiffening, which was getting worse. She didn't want to risk and cause a complete spasm and muscle tear, so she stopped while trailing 3-1 in the second set.

Australian Open title defense is just a week and a half away for Clijsters. Tomorrow she will have an MRI to check the seriousness of the injury, but she's not blindly optimistic: "I don't doubt that there will be a problem once I start in Melbourne".

Hantuchova's opponent in the final will be Kaia Kanepi, who defeated Francesca Schiavone 6-3 6-0 in the semifinals.

Additional info: The 2012 season has barely started, and it seems that my New Year's wishes are not coming true – injuries are already piling up. Besides Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters, Sabine Lisicki is having a left abdominal muscle injury, Ksenia Pervak migrane, Polona Hercog low back injury, and not to mention Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova who have delayed their beginning of the season due to illness and injury. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Adidas is among the most present clothing companies in the tennis world and after featuring the brand's Barricade line on the example of Andrea Petkovic, it's my pleasure to review the Adidas Adilibria and Adizero dresses worn by Daniela Hantuchova and Ana Ivanovic.

Hantuchova was the first to open the season, wearing last year's well-known pink Adidas Women's Fall Adilibria dress, which the Slovak had worn at the 2010 US Open.

From January's Australian Open to April, Ivanovic and Hantuchova wore the beautiful purple Adidas Adilibria dress with an open back, which looks nice but is not favorable for tanning. At Indian Wells Hantuchova also sported the tank from the collection, combined with a white skort.

In Stuttgart Hantuchova launched the pink and orange version of the dress and it was present throughout the clay season, including Roland Garros, and the start of the grass-court season in Birmingham and Eastbourne. In Birmingham semifinals Hantuchova and Ivanovic even played against each other in the same dresses – is that the thing Bethanie Mattek Sands dreads? Read more »

A week and a half ago Women's Tennis Blog showed you the cover of Daniela Hantuchova's 2012 charity calendar, aimed at helping HIV-positive children in Cambodia by providing them with appropriate doctors and medicines. Now you can buy the calendar for $21.99 at Tennis Warehouse and enjoy it "not just for what it is, but for what it can do", as Hantuchova said. We got the scoop into a few pages of the calendar and as you can see the Slovakian is looking fabulous in the Monte Carlo setting.

This is the second time Hantuchova has done this calendar and on her website she noted that improvements can already be noticed, which keeps her motivated to make as much of a difference in the children's lives as possible. In addition, Hantuchova is sharing a story of how she got involved with this project: Read more »

Daniela Hantuchova revealed the cover of her calendar for 2012, which will be available at Tennis Warehouse from November 18.

The photo shoot for the calendar took place in Monte Carlo, Hantuchova's place of residence. The calendar proceeds will go to Cambodian orphans infected with HIV. Read more »

Now that the WTA Championships in Istanbul have come to a close, let's shift our attention to the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions which is about to start on November 3 in Bali. The Tour actually announced the draw of the really-season-ending tournament on the day the much more important season-ending tournament commenced (how awkward is that?), but I decided to postpone the Bali talk until Istanbul finishes.

You know that in order to qualify for the event in exotic Bali you have to win an International-level WTA tournament in the ongoing season and not qualify for the WTA Championships in Istanbul which features the best eight singles players of the year. To make things even more complicated, Marion Bartoli did not qualify for Istanbul and was therefore eligible to play Bali, but as the first alternate in Istanbul she did eventually play the event because of Maria Sharapova's withdrawal. Nevertheless, Bartoli is still qualified to play Bali. Pretty messed up. But hey, let's see who's in. Read more »

Rome is a bland of a truly ancient city and a modern metropolis. There is no other city in the world like the Italian capital that offers historic sights that you would need a month to visit all, great shopping, delicious food, and much more. Therefore, watch this video of Slovakian No.2 Daniela Hantuchova taking us through Rome.

Here's one interesting fact about Rome from me: Rome is the first city to reach the population of one million and it was in 133 BC!

Additional info: At the current Bell Challenge in Quebec City, Hantuchova survived the first round against Croatian world No.160 Ajla Tomljanovic 6-0 2-6 6-4.

As our faithful reader P!nky suggested, I'm making a poll for Wimbledon, a bit reluctantly, though, as Roland Garros winner Li Na was not even included in my Roland Garros poll which featured twelve names. This time I've narrowed down my list a bit, but if the player you favor is not included, feel free to add her in the comments section.

 Loading ...

Li Na is here because grass is her good surface and she won the French Open recently, although she did lose early to Daniela Hantuchova at the AEGON International. Talking about Hantuchova, I think her current form gives her big credentials for this year's Wimbledon, although her retirement in the semifinal against Petra Kvitova at Eastbourne is worrying. Kvitova played the Wimbledon semifinals last year and this weekend she played the final of Eastbourne which she lost to Marion Bartoli. I wanted to give justice to Bartoli and include her as well, because she won on the grass of the Wimbledon tune-up, has had a great win-loss record recently and played the final of Wimbledon in 2007. Caroline Wozniacki is world No.1, so she has to make the list. Serena Williams is defending champion, although she didn't impress in the lead-up to Wimbledon, while her sister Venus won the tournament five times. And last but not least, the 2004 champion Maria Sharapova, who played impressively this clay-court season, and grass is her much better surface.

What do you say? Who do you think has the greatest chance to win Wimbledon 2011? (photo: Fimb)

Venus Williams survived one more round than her sister Serena at the AEGON International in Eastbourne, but that was it, in the quarterfinals she lost to in-form Daniela Hantuchova, who played the final of Birmingham last week. Hantuchova's first win over Venus in their eleven meetings, and actually the first in ten years, came after a tough battle with both Venus and the wind.

In the first set of the Eastbourne quarterfinal, Hantuchova converted two of three break opportunities she had and held her serve throughout the set to win it 6-2.  The Slovak world No.25 looked to be on a good way to victory while leading 6-2 4-2, but Venus fought back and won the second set 7-5. In the decider Hantuchova took command again and advanced to the semifinals where she will play fifth seed Petra Kvitova. Final score: 6-2 5-7 6-2.

Hantuchova was Eastbourne runner-up in 2004. (photo: Stephane Martinache)

German world No.100 Sabine Lisicki defeated Slovakia's Daniela Hantuchova in a rain-delayed final of the AEGON Classic in Birmingham and collected her second WTA title.

En route to the Birmingham trophy, the unseeded Lisicki defeated Kimiko Date-Krumm (62) in the first round, Kirsten Flipkens (111) in the second, Tamira Paszek (80) in the third, Magdalena Rybarikova (69) in the quarters, Peng Shuai (20) in the semis and finally Daniela Hantuchova (28). As you can see, only one Lisicki's opponent was ranked lower than her. However, it is not really surprising that Lisicki managed to defeat them, as she was ranked No.22 in 2009, prior to her health problems. Read more »