Svetlana Kuznetsova, who had lost her last six finals, defeated world No.1 Dinara Safina 6-4 6-3 at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix to win her first title since August 2007.

Kuznetsova was in command in the all-Russian final and sent Safina to a third final defeat of the season, after Sydney and Australian Open. Safina had five break points, but converted none of them, while Kuznetsova the 2004 US Open champion now ranked No. 9, converted two out of four.

Safina was playing her first tournament since becoming No.1. Kuznetsova will definitely remember this victory, it’s her first title in a long time, plus, she won the white Porsche. (photo via Yahoo)

World No.1 and top seed Dinara Safina once again used her impressive comeback skills to defeat Flavia Pennetta 3-6 7-5 6-0 and reach the Stuttgart final where she will face fellow Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova.

The world No.14 Pennetta seemed to be on a good way to victory as she won the first set and was close to winning the second, too. However, when Safina leveled at 5-5 in the second set, she never looked back and won the next eight games. Pennetta showed powerful groundstrokes, but as she lost her chances she became burnt out and Safina started dominating.

Safina now has a 6-0 head-to-head record against Pennetta.

Earlier, fifth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova crushed compatriot and second seed Elena Dementieva 6-4 6-2 with surprising ease in just 67 minutes to book her place in the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix final.

In Sunday’s final Kuznetsova will be trying to win her first tournament since New Haven in 2007. Safina will be going for her first title of the season, after losing in two finals in 2009, in Sydney and at the Australian Open. (photos via Sony Ericsson WTA Tour)

Dinara Safina won her first match as world number one by defeating Sara Errani 6-0 6-1 to reach the second round of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix.

Safina, who celebrated her 23rd birthday in Stuttgart on Monday, defeated the 37th ranked Errani in just 51 minutes.

Meanwhile, Jelena Jankovic, whose experiments with fitness regime ruined her game, decided to keep her expectations low: "I won't be thinking about defending the title here, it's more important for me to just get back to playing good tennis."

It’s bizarre and still painful that in Jankovic’s case it would’ve been better if she hadn’t worked at all, than those overly difficult trainings in the wrong direction. However, JJ learned her lesson: "You listen to your team and you think it will bring results. But my body just did not accept it [...] I am not doing any more experiments."

Great news is that the fourth-ranked Serb feels that her game is recovering: "I feel I am coming back into form."

World No.17 Dominika Cibulkova is awaiting Jelena Jankovic in the first round of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix. (sources: BBC, Reuters; photo: safina-dinara.com)

More family picture from the childhood of now top-ranked WTA player Dinara Safina have surfaced, and they’re always an absolute delight. So far we’ve seen a wonderful video of the three-year-old Safina playing tennis, and a couple of photos of the Safin family. Now we can see even more cute photos thanks to Tennis Info Blog.

Isn't it adorable? – Marat helping little Dinara with her homework. By the way, they're the only brother-sister duo to have been No.1 in professional tennis.

And look how cute Dinara's smile is while Marat is hugging her. Read more »

Last week, before my leaving for Prague, I promised to make a summary of all the things I would have missed in the tennis world, and here it is.

Sabine Lisicki and Roberta Vinci were victorious, Lisicki at the Family Circle Cup, and Vinci at the Barcelona Ladies Open.

Two weeks ago we announced that Dinara Safina was to overtake Serena Williams at the top of the rankings, and that day has come today. It’s interesting to point out that Safina and her older brother Marat Safin are the only brother-sister duo to have been No.1 in professional tennis.

Ana Ivanovic made some family photos public and also updated her online diary, talking about the Easter traditions in Serbia. I can make a note that Serbs are Orthodox Christians and their church calendar is the Julian calendar and not the Gregorian calendar, so Easter in Serbia was celebrated yesterday, April 19.

In addition, Ana Ivanovic and Venus Williams have been nominated for 2009 Laureus World Sports Awards.

Maria Sharapova is supposedly about to return before the French Open. Russia's Fed Cup captain Shamil Tarpishchev said: "I spoke with her father the day before yesterday and he told me that she is training seriously for Roland Garros. She is getting ready to play a couple of tournaments before the French Open. Maria is now back to full training. We can only hope that she does well." I have to see it to believe it, though.

Of course, Sharapova’s continuing her modeling career. The latest are her photos for Nike, and Nike must have known we missed Masha, so they gave us plenty of her in one place.

Vera Zvonareva badly hurt her ankle while playing against Virginie Razzano at the Family Circle Cup. She has two torn ligaments, one full tear and one partial.

Zheng Jie signed with ANTA, the Chinese brand already promoted by Jelena Jankovic. The Asia’s No. 1 WTA player also visited her home province of Sichuan, the first time after the devastating earthquake hit it last year in May. Don’t forget that Zheng donated her Wimbledon prize money to help the victims of the disaster.

I hope this summary is giving you a nice overview of the events I missed to report because of my Prague adventures.

Glad to be back blogging,

Marija

Current world No.2 Dinara Safina will overtake Serena Williams at the top of the new Sony Ericsson WTA Tour rankings to be published on April 20.

Serena will lose the No.1 spot because of suffering an upset in the first round of the Andalucia Tennis Experience. The injured American was defeated by 95th-ranked Klara Zakopalova, the Czech who had only won two Tour matches in 2009 before this week.

Here’s what Safina said about the news:

It's a great honor to reach the number one ranking and it is a dream that every girl who has ever wanted to play professional tennis shares. It is even extra special for me since my brother Marat was able to reach the number one ranking (in 2000) and I am happy to share this achievement with him. There's no question that while I am very proud of my results over the past year, I would have liked to reach this achievement in a different manner. I hope to prove to everyone over the coming months that I merit the honor of being world number one.

The 22-year-old Russian will become the 19th woman to hold the top spot. (source: BBC, photo: Getty Images via Sony Ericsson WTA Tour)

The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour staged its second "Iconic" photo shoot during the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships, and big tennis names such as Serena Williams, Dinara Safina, Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Daniela Hantuchova glammed up to be photographed by world-renowned Lorenzo Aguis.

In the following behind-the-scenes video you can see the players posing and commenting on how they felt about modeling.

Second seed Dinara Safina and seventh seed Ana Ivanovic are being as blue as their adidas outfits at the 2009 Sony Ericsson Open, as both exited the tournament in the third round already.

The Russian world No.2 Safina lost 6-1 6-4 to Australian Samantha Stosur, while last week’s finalist at Indian Wells, Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic, fell to unfortunately almost-forgotten Agnes Szavay of Hungary.

"It just bad match for me, it was just a disaster match," Safina commented.

After being upset Ivanovic said: "I hardly did anything well today. I was trying to come in and I was volleying pretty well at times, but I was really disappointed. I couldn't really hold my serve." (source: BBC, photos via Ana Ivanovic's website, Sony Ericsson Open)