First of all, I'm sorry for not having covered the semifinals, but I have a good excuse, I was a maid of honor at a friend's wedding yesterday . Recovering from yesterday's wild celebrations, I was able to relax with the final action in Indian Wells, featuring Maria Sharapova and Caroline Wozniacki. The Dane's last Premier Mandatory final was at the same tournament two years ago and then she went all the way to the title, even beating Sharapova in the semis, but things have since changed considerably and the Russian is way stronger now, overpowering Wozniacki 6-2 6-2 in the title match.

Sharapova recorded 33 winners to Wozniacki's two and that hard-hitting and accuracy brought her a break to love at the very beginning of the match and a straightforward victory, without dropping her own serve, in one hour and 21 minutes. Naturally, Sharapova's count of unforced errors was greater than Wozniacki's, 25 to 19, but her dominance in winner's was insurmountable.

After a first-round bye, Sharapova beat Francesca Schiavone, Carla Suarez Navarro, Lara Arruabarrena, Sara Errani, Maria Kirilenko and finally Wozniacki, all in straight sets, and lifted her 28th career champion's trophy and first this season. She will ascend to No.2 in the rankings, pushing Victoria Azarenka to the third position. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

After taking out third seed Agnieszka Radwanska in the fourth round of the BNP Paribas Open, Maria Kirilenko upset fifth seed Petra Kvitova in the quarterfinals, switching from Radwanska’s long rallies to Kvitova’s power game, thus recording two Top 10 victories in a single tournament for the first time in her career and making the biggest semifinal of her life.

The 13th-seeded Kirilenko initially took a 4-2 lead, before falling to Kvitova’s power and winners to trail 4-6 2-4. The Czech then lost her range and gave away the second set by hitting four straight double faults while serving to stay in it and in the third set Kirilenko came out on top to finally win 4-6 6-4 6-3, despite problems with her knee in the first set.

We will have an all-Russian Indian Wells semifinal, as second seed Maria Sharapova later advanced with a tight 7-6(6) 6-2 victory over sixth seed Sara Errani which featured a 82-minute first set. Playing her third tournament of the season, Sharapova is in her third 2013 semifinal. (source: WTA Tour, photo: © Neal Trousdale)

This is the third post in Omair's series comparing the games of WTA Top 3 to their respective Top 3 ATP colleagues. After the introductory article, Omair talked about "Who would win if Serena faced Djokovic, Azarenka played Federer and Sharapova encountered Murray?" and now he is digging into the actual stats to compare them further.

It is always tough when you have to compare the consistency of players, there are a lot of factors that must be taken into account. I tried to cover some factors and see how the two players respond in each of the chosen categories. I would love to hear from you people and see if we can add further categories to enhance the analysis and make it more credible.

The factors that I have taken into account are as follows:

• WIN-LOSS RECORD – Gives an idea of how many matches the player actually played and how many matches he/she won or lost. This will also be important in that we will see if a player won more matches than the other despite playing fewer tournaments.
• PERCENTAGE OF MATCHES WON – Players have played different number of tournaments, hence just comparing the number of matches won or lost would not make sense. A more appropriate indicator for comparison will be the percentage of matches won or lost. The greater the percentage, the more consistent the player is, and vice versa.
• PERCENTAGE OF TITLES WON – I have mentioned the number of titles won in the summary, but more appropriate would be the percentage of titles won, since each player played different number of tournaments, hence percentage will give us a better idea of which player did well. The greater the percentage, the more consistent the player is, and vice versa. Read more »

Omair is continuing his series of comparing Top 3 WTA players to the ATP Top 3. Before digging into the actual numbers to contrast the two tours, Omair is comparing the general sporting characteristics of men and women and the styles of WTA No.1, No.2 and No.3 players to their respective ATP colleagues.

I hope that you people enjoyed the introductory article. There are a few things that I should have mentioned then, but better late than never. Please note that the views expressed here are mine and it is just how I see things, it is not to offend anyone, be it player or his/her fan.

Firstly, men’s tennis and women’s tennis are completely different for a lot of reasons. The major reason is probably the physique and build of sexes. We can argue into it by saying that there are a lot of female players who have more power than males, however, a biologist or doctor would be able to explain it more appropriately. Overall, for one reason or another, the games are different, but that does not mean that one is better than the other. Difference is the spice of life, and it is difference that makes things interesting.

A reader pointed out that women’s tour is more elegant, delicate as compared to men. I, for one, would love to see an encounter of Serena Williams and Roger Federer, not to determine who is better, just to see how they match up with each other. However, as I said in the first article, more appropriate matches would be Serena Williams vs. Novak Djokovic, Victoria Azarenka vs. Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova vs. Andy Murray. Can you imagine Serena Williams acing Novak Djokovic, Victoria Azarenka outhitting Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova outlasting Andy Murray? Have you ever wondered or have you ever wanted to see these players challenging each other? I have imagined it quite a few times and if the matches were to happen, here are the outcomes I would expect.

SERENA WILLIAMS VS. NOVAK DJOKOVIC

In the match-up of Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic, I am not too sure if Novak Djokovic would come out on top handily. He might if Serena would have one of those rough days. It would be more of a coin toss. This would perhaps be the most interesting of all the match-ups considering that both players can defend well, can hit through their opponents and return well. It would definitely be a match worth watching. In a best-of-three, I would go with Serena, although Djokovic would have an equal chance of taking it, but I stick with Serena. Read more »

Our contributor Omair always enjoys giving us a statistical perspective at the world of tennis. He's written countless articles statistically previewing and reviewing matches and tournaments, predicting future results based on the past at certain events or parts of the season, etc. (you can read all his guest posts at his Stats Corner on Women's Tennis Blog) and now he's decided to compare the very best of the WTA to the very best of the ATP and check whether the numbers back up the story that the WTA is less consistent than the ATP. Since there are many facts to be analysed, this will be a series and below is Omair's introductory article.

"The WTA lacks consistency, just look at the ATP, there is a Big 4 and they have been very dominant", "women's tennis is not worth watching", etc. – these are discussions the tennis world has been having. "The WTA needs a Big 4 like the ATP" – a lot of heated debate went on this topic for quite some time, in fact, it still is going on, with some journalists thrashing the WTA.

I will now look into the stats and see how much of this debate can be explained by numbers. Let's start looking into this issue by reminding ourselves about the results of some of the top players from ATP and WTA.

Last year saw the transformation that everyone wanted to see in the WTA, an emergence of the Big 4. We saw Victoria Azarenka win her maiden Grand Slam and claim the top spot, starting her season with a 26-match winning streak, we saw Agnieszka Radwanska lose only to Azarenka for the first few months, we saw Maria Sharapova claim Roland Garros to complete her Career Slam and who can forget Serena Williams tearing the field in the second half of the year to lay her hands on Wimbledon, Olympic Gold medal, US Open and the year-end Championships.

Serena Williams reclaimed the top spot recently by beating Petra Kvitova in the quarterfinals of the Qatar Total Open. In doing so, the American became the oldest female player to be ranked world No.1 in the Open Era. The Top 4 female players as of today are:

1. Serena Williams
2. Victoria Azarenka
3. Maria Sharapova
4. Agnieszka Radwanska

Read more »