The 27th-ranked Angelique Kerber scored her first Top 10, more precisely a Top 5, victory against top seed Maria Sharapova in the quarterfinals of the Open GDF Suez, and after beating Yanina Wickmayer in the semis 6-7(2) 6-3 6-4, Kerber completed the career milestone week by overcoming second seed and home force Marion Bartoli in the final to win her first title on the WTA Tour. It's not that the early rounds were easy for the ninth-seeded Kerber. First she faced an always-tricky Lucie Safarova and in the second round Monica Niculescu pushed her to 6-3 4-6 6-3.

Bartoli is world No.7, so the victory in the title match is Kerber's second against a Top 10 player. But it wasn't a simple task, as the two fought for two hours and 39 minutes until Kerber won 7-6(3) 5-7 6-3. The first set contained four service breaks, two on each side, and Bartoli was 100% successful on break point conversions, but Kerber came out strong and took the set in a tiebreak. The German was on a roll until 5-2 in the second set, when Bartoli took charge and won five straight games to take the match to the third set. Kerber then again established a lead and this time she kept it alive until the final point to her advantage. (photo: Upali Wickramasinghe)

After surviving a set and 4-1 down in the second set, and then 5-2 down in the third set of her Paris quarterfinal against Roberta Vinci, Marion Bartoli overcame her semifinal challenge against Klara Zakopalova, coming back from 4-2 down in the first set to win the set in the tiebreak, before bageling her opponent in the second set and winning the match 7-6(3) 6-0. Bartoli is now in her first ever final at the Open GDF Suez and obviously it means a lot to her to go that far at her home tournament.

Angelique Kerber, who ousted top seed Maria Sharapova in the quarterfinals, will be Bartoli's opponent in the title match, having defeated Yanina Wickmayer 6-7(2) 6-3 6-4. Note that Kerber has played four tournaments this season and this is her third semifinal in 2012, after Auckland and Hobart. (photo: Lawntennisnews)

On Monday our guest poster and stats lover Omair dug us into the numbers of his detailed analysis about the number of wins year-end Top 10 players scored over Top 10 players in 2011 and their best tournaments. Now it's time for Part 2 and a different perspective – results of the Top 10 stars approached through their losses.

First have a look at the table showing average rank of players who defeated each of the year-end Top 10 players and the lowest-ranked player to beat year-end Top 10 players during 2011. 

Vera Zvonareva needs to be mentioned here for her consistency as she is the only one of the Top 10 who was not beaten by a player ranked outside Top 35, while the rest of her colleagues from this elite group were beaten at least twice. The lowest-ranked player to defeat Zvonareva during 2011 was Tsvetana Pironkova, ranked 33rd (seeded 32nd) during the third round of Wimbledon.

Of Zvonareva's 22 losses only three came at the hands of players ranked between 30 and 35 and interestingly they came at the hands of players ranked 31, 32, and 33. Also, a total of only three losses came at the hands of players ranked between 21 and 29, while the rest of 16 came at the hands of Top 20 players. Average rank of Zvonareva's conquerors was 15, while the average rank of the conquerors of all the remaining Top 10 players was not even within Top 20.

Victoria Azarenka also needs to be mentioned here, because only five of her 17 losses came at the hands of players ranked outside Top 20, and of those five losses two came at the hands of Serena Williams who had low ranking due to her health problems and lack of play. Average rank of Azarenka's conquerors in 2011 was 23.

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We can soon start calling our reader Omair a stats expert. After seeing his "Comparative analysis of Top 10 players and their performance at big tournaments in 2011" received so well, Omair eagerly rushed to thrill us with more analysis, this time focusing on the year-end Top 10 players and the ranking of opponents that they beat in 2011 (Part 1) and on the ranking of opponents that beat them (Part 2). Let the tables do the talking!

The table above shows the number of tournaments where a year-end Top 10 player defeated more than one Top 10 player. Petra Kvitova tops here with three tournaments, at two of which she defeated three or more Top 10 players en route to the title (Madrid and WTA Championships). World number one Caroline Wozniacki is the only Top 10 player who did not beat two Top 10 players in a single tournament.

Let's continue with tables showing tournaments won by each Top 10 player and tournaments where the player (though did not end up winning the event) ended up beating two or more Top 10 players.

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In the beginning of the year our loyal contributor John Bolan made a prediction of how Top 10 would look like at the end of the season and a lot of readers presented their Top 10 picks in the comments. Now that the tennis 2011 has ended, I thought it was perfect time to ask John to do a comparison of the prediction and the actual season-ending rankings. He was eager to accept my proposal. Continue reading to see the shocking changes over the last 11 months, such as Justine Henin and Dinara Safina not playing any more and Petra Kvitova, who was never even mentioned, joining the elite big time.

On January 8, 2011 the Women’s Tennis Blog published my article "Who will be Top 10 players at the end of 2011?".  My picks were listed with reasons why I chose them. Many fans used the comment section to submit their picks. Now that the year is over, let’s find out how we did.

Most of us only named about 5 out of the 10 Top finishers. The reason that we did so poorly was the injury factor. Five of the top players were injured for most of the year – Justin Henin, Kim Clijsters, Dinara Safina, Serena Williams and Venus Williams. Most of us had at least 3 of these injured stars on our Top 10 list. The most difficult factor in picking the Top 10 is trying to guess who will not be able to play a full season and 2011 was an unusual year with so many of the top stars injured for so long.

No one picked the number 2 finisher – Petra Kvitova. Only one person picked Marion Bartoli and only one picked Andrea Petkovic. These omissions hurt the overall accuracy of our picks. Read more »

This blog likes to give its faithful readers an opportunity to contribute and show their take on women's tennis, so here's Omair's analysis of our year-end Top 10 players and their 2011 results at Grand Slams, Premier tournaments and the WTA Championships. Have a look at what the numbers suggest.

Just to note, in the following tables CW is Caroline Wozniacki, PK is Petra Kvitova, VA is Victoria Azarenka, MS is Maria Sharapova, LN is Li Na, SS is Samantha Stosur, VZ is Vera Zvonareva, AR is Agnieszka Radwanska, MB is Marion Bartoli and AP is Andrea Petkovic.

WIN-LOSS RECORD OF THE YEAR-END TOP 10 PLAYERS AGAINST EACH OTHER IN 2011

The win-loss record is in itself self-explanatory, showing who has been the most dominant player - Petra Kvitova. Please also note the number of wins by a player against Top 5 players, especially for Top 5 players.

OVERALL WIN-LOSS RECORD IN 2011

Kvitova is not the leader only in the percentage of wins over fellow season-ending Top 10 players, but is also the leader in yearly win-loss record overall.

2011 GRAND SLAM WINS OF TOP 10 PLAYERS

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Top seed Marion Bartoli retired with an ankle injury soon after the start of the third set of her opening match against Anabel Medina Garrigues at the Commonweath Bank Tournament of Champions in Bali. And that wasn't the only blow to the tournament on Friday. An earthquake hit the exotic island so much that the press conference had to be held outside the tournament facility. Luckily it happened after the matches were completed and spectators had already left.

"I’ve never done a press conference like this before," said Daniela Hantuchova who lost her quarterfinal to Sabine Lisicki 7-5 6-2. "It was quite frightening, but we seem to be okay." Read more »

Sabine Lisicki is relieving her jetlag in Bali by painting pottery which will be auctioned off for charity. In her blog for the WTA Tour, the German reveals that her parents are also in Bali. Lisicki's mother Elisabeth, a painting and ceramics artist, enjoyed doing art with her daughter, while father Richard was busy taking the pictures for Sabine’s Facebook page. Read more »