The top ranked doubles team of Gisela Dulko and Flavia Pennetta won seven titles last year, including the WTA Championships, and they upped one level by adding the Australian Open title, their first Grand Slam, to their successful partnership.

The win against Victoria Azarenka and Maria Kirilenko in the Australian Open women's doubles final didn’t come easily – actually the Argentinean-Italian pair lost the first set and faced match points at 5-4 in the second set. Dulko and Pennetta then won three games in a row to level at one set all, and powered through the third set to win 2-6 7-5 6-1.

Dulko and Pennetta played the quarterfinals of all four Grand Slams last year, and the semifinals of Wimbledon. Azarenka was a Grand Slam finalist in doubles two times, including the 2008 Australian Open with Shahar Peer. (photo AP via Yahoo)

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 »

Thanks to our regular reader Maja J, we are learning about these sneak previews of adidas' WTA stars wearing their clothing for the 2011 Australian Open. We've already talked about the beautiful purple adilibria outfit Ana Ivanovic will be wearing Down Under, but now we're having the photo of the outfit on Ana herself (previously I thought it was a dress, but now I hear it's a skirt and a top), as well as the pictures of Justine Henin and Flavia Pennetta in the designs adidas prepared for them.

Justine Henin will be in more colors than usual with her new SS11 Barricade two-piece ensemble, but I have to say I prefer the less is more approach when it comes to Henin and colors. The outfit, consisting of a polo shirt and skort, will be available in two color combinations of "fresh pink", "intense green" and white.

Read more »

Flavia Pennetta beat Coco Vandeweghe 6-1 6-2 in the fourth singles rubber of the Fed Cup final in San Diego, secured the second straight Fed Cup title for Italy and their third in five years. Italians believe that their close friendship, love of the game and their country plays a great role in their Fed Cup achievements.

Here are the words of Italy captain Corrado Barazzutti:

The secret is this is a team which has played with each other a lot and they all respect each other. And they love to play in this competition. In some way, they feel that this competition is their competition, our competition. It is almost like a love affair. They feel it's something very important to play for Italy, for their country.

And here’s what Pennetta said after winning her eighth successive Fed Cup match:

I really enjoy playing for my country and I really enjoy playing for this team. We are all friends with each other and we spend so much time together.

The final score of the Italy vs. the United States Fed Cup final is 3-1. Italy won the first two matches with Francesca Schiavone defeating Coco Vandeweghe 6-2 6-4, and Flavia Pennetta beating Bethanie Mattek Sands 7-6(4) 6-2. Melanie Oudin won that sole match for the US with a 6-3 6-1 victory over Schiavone. And finally, as mentioned, Pennetta clinched the victory.

The leader in the number of Fed Cup titles is still the US with 17, Australia has seven, the Czech Republic and Spain follow with five, Russia has four, and Italy has three now. (source: Reuters, photo via Fed Cup)

Doubles team of Gisela Dulko and Flavia Pennetta crowned their stellar season with their biggest career title, the WTA Championships – Doha 2010. They defeated second seeds Kveta Peschke and Katarina Srebotnik 7-5 6-4 in Sunday’s final and won the prestigious season-ending title playing at the tournament for the very first time.

The top-seeded pairing of Dulko and Pennetta came to Doha with six 2010 doubles titles (Miami, Stuttgart, Rome, Bastad, Montreal, Moscow) and what better way to finish the season than by becoming the year-end No.1 team on the WTA and winning the WTA Championships title. On top of that, Argentina's Dulko will rise to No.1 in the individual doubles rankings and become just the second South American ever to achieve that feat. (photo: sr_cranks)