Two big stars of women’s tennis have ended cooperation with their coaches – world No.5 Li Na with Michael Mortensen who coached her since April this year, and world No.9 Kim Clijsters with her long-time coach Wim Frissette.

The main reason Li fired Danish coach Mortensen is that she felt he was giving her false encouragement and confidence.

He tells me everything is perfect, everything is fantastic. I say, ‘Yes, everything is fantastic, but I always lose first round.’ I mean, this is not fantastic. I think we need to change something. I think maybe the team or coach just try to give me confidence, but I don’t think I get [it].

The start of Li’s cooperation with Mortensen was fruitful, including her first Grand Slam title at Roland Garros, but the Chinese has since won more than one match at only one tournament.

As for Clijsters, the Belgian has replaced coach Wim Frissette with Carl Maes. Frissette was her coach from 1995 to 2002 and joined her team again earlier this season.

Clijsters is still enjoying her time off the Tour. The last tournament she played was the Rogers Cup (source: Beyond the Baseline, photos: © Neal Trousdale)

Romanian world No.53 Simona Halep enjoyed her first Top 10 victory by eliminating reigning French Open champion Li Na in the first round of the US Open 6-2 7-5.

Following her triumph at the French Open, Li played five tournaments – at three she won only her opening match, at one she won two matches, and now she's left the US Open with no matches won. Doesn't this remind you of Ana Ivanovic?

In the meeting with the 19-year-old Halep, who was playing only her second match at the US Open, the sixth-seeded Li committed 54 unforced errors to her opponent's 19. She did have more winners, 22 to Halep's 5, but that was not enough.

And talking about Grand Slam champions and the 2011 US Open, the tournament is left without all the three this season's Grand Slam winners on the second day already – Kim Clijsters, twice defending champion and winner of Australian Open 2011, couldn't even show up because of a stomach muscle injury, Wimbledon 2011 winner Petra Kvitova lost on the first day to Alexandra Dulgheru, and now Li has left the tournament as well. Such a thing has not happened since 1971! (photos: © Neal Trousdale)

Three-time defending champion Caroline Wozniacki will play qualifier Petra Cetkovska in the final of the New Haven Open.

The top-seeded Wozniacki was a break down for the most part of the first set of the semifinal against Francesca Schiavone, and it was the third-seeded Schiavone who had 24 winners to 18 errors, compared to Wozniacki's 3 winners and 10 errors. Still, the Dane won at rigth moments and in the tiebreak took the first set. Through the second set she went more comfortably and advanced to the final with a 7-6(2) 6-3 win.

Cetkovska battled to a thrilling 6-2 5-7 7-6(9) victory over second seed Li Na to reach her first WTA final, and nothing less than at a Premier-level tournament. At 5-4 in the third set Cetkovska served for the match, gave Li three break opportunities at 0-40, then saved all the three, but double-faulted on match point. In the tiebreak Li saved two match points before losing one of her own at 8-7. Cetkovska closed out on her fifth match point. Read more »

It has been announced in today's WTA press release that the Tour and its players have reached the fan base of 23 million on social media sites, which is an increase of four times in the past 18 months.

The most marketable women's athlete, Maria Sharapova, is leading on Facebook with 5.3 million followers and that number is growing by 250.000 each month. Serena Williams' tweets are the most popular and more than 2.1 million people follow her on Twitter. Li Na is spreading the tennis influence in China and she has 2.7 million fans on Sina Weibo. Read more »

The US Open is approaching and it's time for reviewing what tennis stars will be wearing at the final Grand Slam of the season. The most famous brands, Adidas and Nike, are always the first to grab attention, so let's see what they have prepared for their biggest names.

Ana Ivanovic has been sporting a beautiful blue Adidas Fall Adizero Dress and at the US Open the 23-year-old Serb will wear the same dress, only in pink, or as they officially call it, in "sharp red". The dress has an open back and a delicate design on torso.

Serena Williams will finally give credit to her Nike clothes at a major and her two recent victories at Premier-level events will insure she pays back to all the time Nike made an outfit for her even though she didn't play a tournament.

Serena has two dresses for the 2011 US Open. During the day she will wear Autumn Smash Hard Court Dress in red, and for night matches she is expected to wear the blue version.

Maria Sharapova is also equipped for both day and night. The 2006 US Open champion has a Maria Ace Day Dress in gray and light purple with fluorescent red linings. Sharapova's night dress is not the same as the day one just with a darker color scheme, the style is compatible but different. Read more »

Li Na's French Open title propelled her in the world of sponsorships and fashion. As you may have noticed, I'm all for it, it's refreshing to have an Asian in the mix. The image above is from the Chinese edition of the Marie Claire magazine. Doesn't Li look stunning?

The 29-year-old is earning nice amounts of money by virtue of her tennis success and she finished 8th in the Forbes list of the highest-paid female athletes, however, the Chinese prefers spending her husband's money  "I still like to use my husband's credit card because I want to save my money," Li joked. Read more »

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)

Read more »

It’s only now that Li Na has returned home after her last month’s historic victory at the French Open and the WTA organized a celebration in Beijing. The China's first Grand Slam singles champion also attended a prize ceremony in her home province of Hubei, which awarded her with $94,000 and named her the Hubei Pioneer of Breakthrough.

Other than those two events, Li decided to rest at home and stay away from the limelight.

Since I have returned, I have tried my best to not go out if I can help it and just stay at home. Perhaps everyone's recognition of me is greater and their expectations will be higher, but to me I don't want to change the life I have been leading.

Read more »

For the previous Grand Slam I didn't include Li Na in my poll and she won the title, and now that I included her she lost in the second round! I know, she didn't lose to just anyone, she lost to Sabine Lisicki who won the Birmingham title on grass in the lead-up to Wimbledon, but still, my polls has been ruined too soon.

Anyway, the world No.62 Lisicki, a wildcard at the tournament, lost the first set, battled back to win the second and saved two match points in the decider when serving at 3-5 15-40. The German fired two service winners to bring the game to deuce and managed to hold serve with two aces. After a series of breaks Lisicki held for 7-6 and then broke the fourth-ranked Li to win the match 3-6 6-4 8-6.

The 8-0 win-loss record this grass season must be very rewarding to Lisicki, whose 2010 was marred by left ankle injury. Read more »

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.

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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)