Women's tennis players dominate the Forbes magazine Top 10 list of the highest-paid female athletes and Maria Sharapova is the leader for the seventh year in a row. Forbes included earnings from salaries, prize money, endorsements, appearance fees and exhibitions between July 2010 and July 2011.

The 24-year-old Maria Sharapova did make the final of Wimbledon, but the greatest share in her $25 million fortune earned in the one-year period came from lucrative deals with Nike, Head, Evian, Clear Shampoo, Sony Ericsson, Tiffany, Tag Heuer, and Cole Haan.

World No.1 tennis player Caroline Wozniacki occupies the second position in the list with twice smaller earnings of $12.5 ($6 million from tournaments and $6.5 million from sponsors). The 21-year-old Wozniacki has deals with Adidas, Yonex, Compeed and Oriflame.

THE HIGHEST-PAID FEMALE ATHLETES

1. Maria Sharapova
2. Caroline Wozniacki
3. Danica Patrick (auto racing driver)
4. Venus Williams
5. Kim Clijsters
6. Serena Williams
7. Kim Yu-na (figure skater)
8. Li Na
9. Ana Ivanovic
10. Paula Creamer (golfer)

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The current Big Three of women's tennis, if I may call them that way – Serena Williams, Venus Williams and Kim Clijsters – had very much different Wednesday. Serena lost in Eastbourne, Venus won, while Kim faced the fact that she would have to withdraw from Wimbledon because of her injury sustained yesterday in 's-Hertogenbosch.

Serena Williams survived a scrappy first-round encounter with Tsvetana Pironkova, but top seed Vera Zvonareva was a sterner opponent and even though Serena led 6-4 5-4 Zvonareva prolonged the match and won it 3-6 7-6(5) 7-5 after three hours and 12 minutes of play. Positive news for Serena today is her Wimbledon seeding. The defending champion will be seed No.7, which is 19 places higher than her ranking, and will avoid the highest-ranked opponents until at least the quarterfinals. Read more »

Second-ranked Kim Clijsters' failed to receive much attention with Serena and Venus Williams returning to the competition this week, but here it is, the Belgian surprisingly lost in the second round of her home tournament, the Unicef Open. Her conqueror – Italian world No.81 Romina Oprandi, who is now celebrating her greatest career achievement. Final score: 7-6(5) 6-3.

Not only has Clijsters lost, but in the first set she appeared to have injured right ankle. The former world No.1 will undergo some tests to see how her ankle is doing, and now even her participation at Wimbledon is in doubt. Remember, only weeks ago Clijsters was healing her right ankle injury sustained at a wedding?

At the French Open, her first tournament after the recovery from the injury, Clijsters was also upset in the second round, by Arantxa Rus, ranked outside Top 100. (photo: krissaconnection)

Traditionally, Women's Tennis Blog is doing Grand Slam fashion overviews, so let's see what major sports brands have on display at Roland Garros 2011.

World No.1 Caroline Wozniacki brought nothing new to the fashion table of Roland Garros – the 20-year-old Dane, who bowed out of the tournament in the third round already, wore the adidas by Stella McCartney Ruffle Dress which she debuted at Indian Wells in March.

Adidas impressed with an array of bright colors that perfectly contrast/match the red clay of Roland Garros. Above you can see the variety of pink, orange and green combinations on Daniela Hantuchova, Sorana Cirstea, Andrea Petkovic, Maria Kirilenko and Arantxa Rus. Here you can read more about Adidas' French Open collection.

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Yet again women's tennis is proving that it's pointless to make any sort of prediction – Kim Clijsters was one of the favorites for the title, and even though she wasn't considered undefeatable, who would have thought she would lose in the second round to world No.114 Arantxa Rus of the Netherlands.

The 20-year-old Rus reached the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time, while Clijsters didn't continue her Grand Slam winning streak of 15 matches which included the 2010 US Open and 2011 Australian Open titles. Also, Clijsters had been 31-0 in Grand Slams against players ranked outside the Top 100, and this is her worst result at Roland Garros since her debut at the tournament in 2000. Read more »