We are continuing our little series of women's tennis players and their mothers, and we're starting with one of the most famous tennis moms of the present – Jelena Jankovic's mother Snezana.

Here's a very nice video of Snezana and Jelena together, that the WTA Tour took last year for the Mother's Day. Snezana is talking about what Jelena was like as a child and how she got into tennis.

Another famous Serbian tennis mom is Dragana Ivanovic, also a very frequent site in the stands. Dragana is a lawyer, but more importantly, she's the mother of Grand Slam champion Ana Ivanovic.

The following photo shows Dinara Safina's mother, Rauza Islanova, who used to train her daughter when she was young.

Maria Sharapova's mother Yelena is less seen than her husband Yuri, so enjoy the following few photos of Sharapova and her family. Read more »

Dinara Safina left the social networking website of Twitter when she received offensive comments from some twitterers after her first round loss to Kimiko Date Krumm at the French Open. Seems that Dinara’s wounds have healed and she’s willing to give Twitter another shot.

"Many of you were asking why I left twitter. It was not easy for me when I needed everyone’s support after losing to Kimiko Date, and some people posted some not very nice comments, which I think wasn’t fair," said Dinara, who hadn’t been tweeting since July 25th.

Make sure you follow Dinara on Twitter, especially now that she’s promising to answer all our questions. Also, don’t miss her extensive account of "one of the worst years of her career".

P.S. Don’t get confused, Dinara is using this little squirrel as her avatar.

All the seeded played that played their quarterfinal matches at the Hansol Korea Open, No.1 seed Nadia Petrova, No.5 seed Alisa Kleybanova and No.8 seed Agnes Szavay, advanced to the semifinals, while in the only quarterfinal played solely by unseeded players Dinara Safina lost to Klara Zakopalova.

Both Petrova and Kleybanova broke their opponents five times. Petrova took 61 minutes to beat Kirsten Flipkens 6-2 6-1, while Kleybanova needed seven minutes more to defeat good friend Ekaterina Makarova 6-1 6-2. Szavay had a much tougher match, but ended defending champion Kimiko Date Krumm’s seven match winning streak at the Hansol Korea Open with a 6-2 6-7(3) 6-3 victory in two hours and 42 minutes.

Former world No.1 Dinara Safina has now lost all her three meetings with Klara Zakopalova, and all the three in straight sets, losing to the Czech 7-5 6-3 in Seoul. (photo: sydney-yokochin)

Jarmila Groth lost her first match since winning her maiden WTA title over the weekend in Guangzhou, falling to world No.19 and top seed Nadia Petrova 6-3 6-2  in the opening round of the Hansol Korea Open. Groth still hasn’t defeated a Top 20 player in her career and now her record against them is 0-17. The 41st-ranked Groth won sets in only three matches she played against the members of the Top 20.

Former world No.1s Dinara Safina and Ana Ivanovic, wildcard entries into the Seoul tournament, also played their first round matches, with the Russian winning and the Serb losing. Safina defeated Simona Halep 6-4 6-4, while the seventh-seeded Ivanovic lost to Vera Dushevina 2-6 6-4 6-2 despite having a 6-2 4-4 lead.

The Hansol Korea Open defending champion Kimiko Date Krumm was also in action and she beat fellow Japanese Junri Namigata 6-2 7-5. (source: Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, 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 »

Daniela Hantuchova avenged her last week’s 7-6(4) 7-6(2) defeat to Dinara Safina by beating the Russian 6-3 6-4 in the first round of the US Open. Safina has now lost in the first round of a Grand Slam for the second straight time, at Roland Garros and now at the US Open, while she skipped Wimbledon with a lower back injury.

The former world No.1 Safina, currently ranked 50th, fought hard in the match against seed No.24 Hantuchova, and had a chance to level at 5-5 in the second set, but Hantuchova stayed in there and Safina’s long return handed Hantuchova the victory in the end.

Fifth seed Samantha Stosur lost the first set to Elena Vesnina, and dropped serve right in the beginning of the second set, before breaking right back and eventually winning the set in a tiebreak to finally storm through the decider. Final score: 3-6 7-6(2) 6-1.

Defending champion Kim Clijsters cruised through the first set against world No.104 Greta Arn in just 18 minutes, without losing a single game. In the second set, however, the second-seeded Belgian found herself in a 4-0 deficit before winning 12 straight points (three games) and breaking Arn's serve in the 10th game and again in the last game to close out the match with the score 6-0 7-5.

The victory marks Clijsters’ 15th successive win at the US Open. The streak started at the 2005 US Open, which Clijsters won. Then she didn’t compete at the tournament until 2009, the year when she had an amazing run to another US Open title.

French Open champion Francesca Schiavone eased into the second round of the 2010 US Open with a 6-1 6-0 victory over Ayumi Morita. American darling, Melanie Oudin, is also through. She defeated Olga Savchuk 6-3 6-0. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Dinara Safina has extended her winning streak in Montreal to seven matches by upsetting seed No.18 Nadia Petrova 7-5 4-6 6-4 in the second round. The Russian’s winning streak in the city started in 2008, when she won the title, and she has now added the victory over Petrova to her first round defeat of Andrea Petkovic.

The Safina vs. Petrova match was a marathon which proved to Safina that she can still play high intensity matches. In the decider the former world No.1 won five straight games from 1-4 and thus recorded her first back-to-back victory since the Australian Open in January. In addition, this is Safina’s first three-set victory since Stuttgart in April.

Kim Clijsters followed up her memorable comeback win over Maria Sharapova in the final of Cincinnati this past weekend with another come-from-behind victory, over Bethanie Mattek-Sands in the second round of the Rogers Cup. The fifth-seeded Clijsters, who had a bye in the first round, lost the opening set, fell 4-1 down in the second set and Mattek-Sands even had points for 6-4 5-1. But Clijsters’ then won five straight games to level the match and in the deciding set she was already on a roll. Clijsters defeated Mattek-Sands in a highly entertaining match in which the American showed the diverse skill she has to offer. Final score: 4-6 6-4 6-3.

Here’s how Clijsters commented on her opponent after the match:

"Bethanie came up with some amazing shots. She's a player who can rise to the occasion. If she plays the level she played tonight in those first two sets, I don't see why she shouldn't be in the Top 10 or Top 15." (source: Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, photos courtesy of Fiji Water)

Dinara Safina had a comfortable 6-3 6-3 victory over world No.36 Andrea Petkovic in the first round of the Rogers Cup played in Montreal this year. The Russian won the Rogers Cup the last time the tournament was played in Montreal, in 2008. In that final she defeated Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova 6-2 6-1.

At this point last year Safina was ranked No.1, but right now she’s as low as No.70. She has suffered a drop of 35 spots since last week, failing to defend her finals showing in Cincinnati.

Safina’s opponent in the second round will be the winner of the match between No.18 seed Nadia Petrova and Lucie Safarova. (source: Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Elena Dementieva lost in the second round of the Western and Southern Financial Group Women’s Open to fellow Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, while Kim Clijsters avenged her 2009 Cincinnati loss to Dinara Safina and progressed to the third round. Both Dementieva and Clijsters were playing their opening matches.

The third-seeded Dementeiva claimed to have been affected by the humid weather in the days prior to Wednesday’s rain and simply couldn’t get into the game. Pavlyuchenkova, titlist at the Istanbul Cup last week, won 6-1 6-3 and will next play seed No.13 Shahar Peer.

In a battle of two former world No.1s, fourth seed Kim Clijsters beat Dinara Safina 7-5 6-2. Clijsters started her last year’s return to professional tennis at this very tournament and, interestingly, Safina was the one who ended her Cincinnati campaign in the quarterfinals, with quite a similar score: 6-2 7-5.

Maria Sharapova cruised past Andrea Petkovic 6-3 6-1 in the second round, while Vera Zvonareva survived the encounter with Maria Kirilenko, eventually winning 7-5 2-6 7-6(2). Second seed Caroline Wozniacki had no trouble defeating Sybille Bammer 6-0 6-2. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Serbian qualifier Bojana Jovanovski made a big upset in the first round of the Western and Southern Financial Group Women’s Open by defeating seed No.14 Aravane Rezai, the winner of two claycourt tournaments this season (Mutua Madrilena Madrid Open and Collector Swedish Open Women). The young Serbian rising star, currently ranked at No.98, came back from a set down to defeat the Top 20 player Rezai 4-6 6-3 6-4 on the hard courts of Cincinnati. Jovanovski’s opponent in the second round will be Akgul Amanmuradova.

Former world number one Dinara Safina, unseeded in Cincinnati, made it to the second round with a 7-5 6-4 victory over Italian Roberta Vinci. Safina will next play reigning US Open champion Kim Clijsters, who is seeded fourth at the Western and Southern Financial Group Women’s Open and has a bye in the first round. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)