Justin Cohen, one of my tennis friends that I met thanks to my blog, attended the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati and took a close picture of Maria Sharapova's hand adorned with a beautiful engagement ring reportedly worth $250.000. The picture was taken after she won the Cincinnati title with a hard-fought victory over Jelena Jankovic in the final.

We learned about Sharapova's engagement to LA Lakers basketball player Sasha Vujacic last October and our first spotting of the huge ring was when the pair took the streets of LA. Any input on when the wedding will take place? During Wimbledon a commentator here was mentioning she would marry in an Orthodox church in Los Angeles in July, but apparently it was just a rumor.

One more photo of the ring after the jump. Read more »

A week ago we already showed you the 2011 US Open Nike looks, but now we have videos of the Nike staff talking in detail about Serena Williams' and Maria Sharapova's dresses and footware.

Creative designer at Nike Tennis, Janice Lucena, explained that as an all-American athlete Serena's colors for the US Open will be red, white and blue. The red dress is for the day, the blue dress is for night matches. Nike's objective was to make an outfit which provides Serena with freedom of movement and breathability. As for the shoes, footwear development director Gary McCourt presented Serena's Nike Mirabella 3, which have red accents to perfectly match the day dress. Read more »

Victory in the title match of the Western & Southern Open was so close to the 2009 Cincinnati champion Jelena Jankovic, but last year’s runner-up Maria Sharapova is never defeated until she loses the match point and her well-known willpower gave her the edge in the crucial second-set tiebreak when the Russian won five successive points.

The match featured 20 double faults and 16 service breaks (8 on both sides), most prominently in the third set in which both players failed to hold their serve in the first six games. Sharapova was the first to stop that trend for a 4-3 lead. An extra break later gave her the set and the match 4-6 7-6(3) 6-3. Read more »

The WTA has added new imagery to their "Strong is Beautiful" campaign, under the title "Active Legends".

Along will players whose faces are not commonly exploited in the WTA marketing, Serena Williams was featured when the campaign launched in May. Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova are now part of the campaign for the first time. Read more »

In the title match of the Western & Southern Open, Maria Sharapova will face the 2009 Cincinnti champion Jelena Jankovic, which will be their first meeting in two years and their fourth meeting in a WTA final.

Sharapova started slow in the semifinal against Vera Zvonareva and lost the first set 6-2. But after dominating the beginning, Zvonareva's concentration dropped, some double faults creeped in and Sharapova's energy level raised. Sharapova won 2-6 6-3 6-3.

As for Jankovic and her semifinal against Andrea Petkovic, after surviving the first set and winning it in a tiebreak, the Serb dominated the second set to advance with a 7-6(4) 6-1 victory.

Sharapova leads Jankovic 5-1 in career meetings, including 2-1 in finals. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

In the semifinals of the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati Vera Zvonareva will play Maria Sharapova and Andrea Petkovic will face Jelena Jankovic.

To reach the final four, world No.2 Vera Zvonareva toughed it out against Daniela Hantuchova. Their second set lasted one hour and 13 minutes and Hantuchova managed to earn a set point even though Zvonareva had a match point at 5-4. However, the Russian finished the match in a tiebreak 6-3 7-6(6). Zvonareva will next play Maria Sharapova, whose quarterfinal against Samantha Stosur lasted shorter than Zvonareva's second set. Sharapova cruised past Stosur, 6-3 6-2 and their head-to-head is now 9-0! Read more »

Last week it was Serena Williams who won when five other Grand Slam champions lost in Toronto, and on Thursday in Cincinnati Maria Sharapova was sole such winner. To reach the quarterfinals Sharapova defeated US Open and Roland Garros champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, and three other Grand Slam champions lost their third-round matches.

In the first set Sharapova broke Kuznetsova for a 3-2 lead and then won five straight games until 2-0 in the second set. Late in the second set Kuznetsova broke Sharapova’s serve, but Sharapova soon advanced with a 6-2 6-3 victory.

Other Grand Slam champions in action, Petra Kvitova, Francesca Schiavone and Li Na, didn't advance to the quarterfinals. Kvitova, the winner of Wimbledon 2011, fell to Andrea Petkovic 6-3 6-3. Roland Garros 2010 champion Schiavone lost to Jelena Jankovic 6-3 5-7 6-4. Jankovic revealed that laziness played a role in her bad results. Reigning Roland Garros champion Li was defeated by Samantha Stosur 6-4 3-6 6-4.

Sharapova's opponent in the quarterfinals will be Samantha Stosur, against whom she has an impressive 8-0 head-to-head record.

And talking about Sharapova, Novak Djokovic has returned to his famous impersonations of the Russian, this time for a Head commercial. Djokovic is wearing a blond wig . By the way, Sharapova is also using a Head racquet.

Here's Maria's comment from her Facebook page:

HAHAHA did you see what Novak Djokovic posted? Hey @Novak, is that your new road to success – trying to be me? I am a little disappointed you did not wear my dress and think you could work on your body language a bit more! And the hair… no comment on that… what do you guys think?

(via Maria Sharapova's official website, photo: © Neal Trousdale)

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 »

World No.135 Galina Voskoboeva of Kazakhstan had to qualify for the main draw of the Rogers Cup and the extra matches she played are not preventing her from scoring one great victory after the other: in the first round she upset ninth seed Marion Bartoli, afterwards Flavia Pennetta, and her latest success story is a well-deserved victory over fifth seed Maria Sharapova in the third round.

In the first set Voskoboeva faced no break points and she simply built on the quickly-established 4-2 lead to take the first set 6-3. The second set was more closely contested, with both players having ups and downs, earned and lost opportunities, but Voskoboeva didn't let the opportunity slip away and won the second set 7-5.

Voskoboeva's opponent in the quarterfinals will be fourth seed Victoria Azarenka, who defeated qualifier Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez 6-1 6-2.

In her first tournament since winning Wimbledon, Petra Kvitova was stunned by Andrea Petkovic decisively, 6-1 6-2. Li Na is also out – she fell to Samantha Stosur 6-2 6-4 in the third round. Roberta Vinci, who upset world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki in the previous round, has progressed to the quarterfinals with a 7-6(3) 6-2 win over Ana Ivanovic.

A bad day for Grand Slam champions at Rogers Cup, so far this Thursday four were in action and four lost: Ivanovic, Li, Kvitova and Sharapova. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)