Maria Sharapova's marketability ensured that her luxury brand of sweets Sugarpova, launched in August 2012 in New York, is about to see a %120 return on investment and is now spreading internationally, in particular, ahead of the Australian Open, the Russian organized an official Melbourne Sugarpova launch. But health concerns raised over the sugary product may spoil Sharapova's image.

The average bag of Sugarpova candy has 84 grams of sugar, equivalent to two cans of Coca Cola, and child psychologist Dr Justin Coulson labeled the tennis star's nudging people towards an "unhealthy habit" as "simply irresponsible", especially given the amount of influence she has. Read more »

Omair has been a regular contributor on Women's Tennis Blog, but now he has his own website and in the days leading up to the Australian Open he employed his love of stats to predict how Top 8 seeds will perform at the first Grand Slam of the season.

Omair's position in the articles is purely statistical, as he evaluated players' chances based on the past performance of players having the same seeding and based on the previous Australian Open results of the respective players. It's nice to see a statistical aspect, but you know that much more plays a part in whether a player will succeed, like who is in their section of the draw, possible injuries, mental preparation, etc.

Nevertheless, let's see the statistical analysis for each of our Top 8 stars:

• Victoria Azarenka and Australian Open 2013 - No.1 seed
• Maria Sharapova and Australian Open 2013 - No.2 seed
• Serena Williams and Australian Open 2013 - No.3 seed
• Agnieszka Radwanska and Australian Open 2013 - No.4 seed
• Angelique Kerber and Australian Open 2013 - No.5 seed
• Li Na and Australian Open 2013 - No.6 seed
• Sara Errani and Australian Open 2013 - No.7 seed
• Petra Kvitova and Australian Open 2013 - No.8 seed

Great work, Omair! I know you poured in a lot of your free time in these articles!

Subsequent addition: Check out Omair's analysis of the women's singles draw.

Last year our great contributor John Bolan merged his courage and talent for tennis predictions and shared with us as early as in January how he thought the season-ending WTA Top 10 would look like. And that wasn't all. He asked you to join him in predictions and James, the reader who turned out to be the best predictor, was awarded an autograph of a WTA star.

John Bolan receiving autograph of Victoria Azarenka

As we all enjoyed the little project, we decided to repeat it this year. John has made his 2013 predictions (I have to say that he sent me the finished article way before New Year's Eve and before the WTA action started, but I was a bit slow in putting it up together!), and you are more than welcome to comment on John's picks, to share your own Top 10 selection in the comments below this article and then we get to wait for the season to finish to see how we all fared. The best predictor will win an autograph of a Top 10 WTA player, so there's even an incentive to take some time and employ your foretelling skills! Now I'm giving the word to John!

It isn't easy to predict the Top 10 players for 2013 this early, but these are my choices for the end of 2013:

1. Maria Sharapova
2. Victoria Azarenka
3. Agnieszka Radwanska
4. Serena Williams
5. Li Na
6. Caroline Wozniacki
7. Samantha Stosur
8. Petra Kvitova
9. Sara Errani
10. Angelique Kerber

I have tried my best to keep personal preferences out of my thoughts while choosing these players. Instead, I checked out the most recent head-to-head matches, the number of tournaments played the past two years and injury reports. Injuries always have a big effect on the outcome of the Top 10. Vera Zvonareva and Andrea Petkovic are not included because they remain out of action and will not play in Australia this year. Read more »

We've already had a glimpse at Stella McCartney's dress for Caroline Wozniacki's Australian Open campaign and we've seen the Adidas dress intended for Ana Ivanovic, Daniela Hantuchova and others wearing the line, so now that we found the pictures of the Nike dress Maria Sharapova will most probably wear at the upcoming Australian Open and a new Fila dress, we can't help but notice that everything is yellow!

I can't believe it, but just like Adidas, the color combination of Maria Sharapova's rumored Nike dress is yellow and grey. Here you can see the rest of the collection, including separates and other colors.

Fila went for bright yellow with huge open back and a black bra showing completely. Will this provocative Baseline Cami Dress be worn by Jelena Jankovic and Julia Goerges, the new addition to the Fila team?

Below the cut you can see how the Adidas dresses we showed you last month are looking on Wozniacki and Ivanovic. Read more »

On December 1st, Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic teamed up for a doubles match for the first time at an exhibition in Milan. Their opponents were experienced Italian partners Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci, who won two Grand Slam doubles titles in 2012, on top of six WTA doubles titles. The newbie doubles team lost, but as individuals, in singles, they were victorious. Tennis was not the only highlight of the Milan story, though.

There was this hilarious interview with Ivanovic and Sharapova. They were asked which thing they would like to have that the other one has, and Sharapova said she would love Serbian fans, as they are more enthusiastic than the Russians. The best, of course, was saved for the last, when the interviewer asked them what they think which one would marry first and Ivanovic responded that Sharapova was closer! Hahaha. Sharapova laughed it out, but slowly started packing her stuff, closing the interview. Read more »