Italian fifth seed Francesca Schiavone began the defence of her French Open crown with a confident 6-2 6-0 victory over world No.88 Melanie Oudin.

The 19-year-old American, who became famous during her 2009 Wimbledon and US Open runs which she hasn’t been able to repeat ever since, was tipped as a possible test for Schiavone. However, she won only two games against the defending champion, and hit six winners to Schiavone's 25.

Schiavone’s opponent in the second round will be either Anne Keothavong or Vesna Dolonts.

If you think Schiavone has a chance to repeat her last year's extraordinary feat and win the French Open, vote for her in our poll. (photo: Stephane Martinache)

As our reader Brenda from Argentina asked for my overview of the 2011 Australian Open tennis fashion, here it is – a little bit of every brand, a little bit of good and bad.

Let's not save the best for the last. Let's start with by far the biggest fashion attention-grabber of the tournament – Venus Williams. The American played three matches (actually two, but she started her third one) and showcased the same number of outfits. The following one is the unofficial ugliest tennis outfit of the decade.

Venus, a graduate in fashion design and the person behind clothing line EleVen, made the outfits herself.

Believe it or not, Venus' dresses, or whatever they can be called, have gained a fan base. Whoever likes Venus' latest EleVen dresses, please leave a comment! I'm sure the world would love to hear your reasoning.

I'd like to continue with Nadia Petrova, the representative of Ellesse. Petrova has also had some colorful and imaginative styles (remember her US Open 2010 outfit that had stripes of all the possible colors?). There might be sound logic behind Petrova's support of EleVen.

Another fashion favorite is always Aravane Rezai. Even though this time her family drama attracted more attention than her dress, the Frenchwoman stayed faithful to the touch of crazy uniqueness. Although, she definitely can do better!

Let's move on to adidas – plenty of it. Read more »

Maria Sharapova will officially not use Prince racquets any more, and the word is out that her new brand of choice is Head, even though her agent refused to comment on the subject. The 23-year-old Sharapova had played with Prince since she was nine and won all three of her Grand Slam titles with that racquet.

And although Sharapova's partnership with Head is not official yet, this Nike promo for the Australian Open 2011 clearly shows the Russian is using Head now. (Jacob, thanks for sharing the pic with me!).

There's another partnership change in tennis - Melanie Oudin, who was wearing adidas and famously promoted their Barricade shoes with inspirational messages "believe" and "courage", will now be sporting Wilson's apparel and footwear. The American has been using Wilson’s Blade racquet, but has now become a Wilson exclusive player, having switched to their clothing as well.

There’s one more novelty concerning Oudin and Wilson – the 19-year-old will be swinging her new Blade 98 Pink BLX racquet starting in Australia. (Magdalena, thank you for telling me about this!)

American Melanie Oudin, who came out of nowhere to reach the quarterfinals of the 2009 US Open, found it hard to carry the burden of high expectations and fell to the recently-married Alona Bondarenko in the second round this year. The 18-year-old Oudin made 38 unforced errors during her 6-2 7-5 loss to seed No.29 Bondarenko.

Second seed and defending champion Kim Clijsters had an easy task against Sally Peers, a 19-year-old qualifier ranked 201. Clijsters advanced to the third round with a 6-2 6-1 victory over Grand Slam debutant Peers, who recorded a 6-0 6-1 win over Aleksandra Wozniak in the first round.

Third-seeded Venus Williams struggled early in her match against 193rd-ranked qualifier Rebecca Marino, but beat her 7-6(3) 6-3.

French Open runner-up Samantha Stosur, seeded fifth, reached the third round of the US Open for the first time, even though it’s her seventh appearance at the tournament. Stosur defeated Anastasia Rodionova 6-1 6-4.

Sixth seed Francesca Schiavone, 2010 French Open champion, quickly won her match against fellow Italian Maria Elena Camerin 6-2 6-1. Schiavone has now lost a total of just four games to advance to the third round of the US Open. (photos: © Neal Trousdale)

Melanie Oudin was the media darling of the 2009 US Open when she became the youngest American player to advance to the tournament quarterfinals in 10 years. Her thrilling run was accompanied by the word "believe" on her adidas Barricade shoes she personally designed through miadidas.com. For this year’s US Open Oudin chose the word "courage" for her new pair of Barricade 6.0’s.

You know how people love these success stories, so all eyes will be on the 18-year-old Oudin during the 2010 US Open. She will surely need a lot of courage to bare the pressure. Fellow tennis blogger Diane wrote a nice article about the high expectations and Melanie Mania.

In 2010 Oudin has had good runs only in Paris (semifinals), Memphis (quarterfinals), Ponte Vedra Beach (quarterfinals), and Charleston (quarterfinals). She lost in the first or second round of all the other tournaments, including the five US Open Series tournaments she played.

World No.41 Melanie Oudin of the United States has signed a four-year sponsorship deal with cellular phone service provider Virgin Mobile.

The surprising 2009 US Open quarterfinalist could earn as much as $2 million from the deal, depending on her tennis results, but is guaranteed approximately $500,000 from the company.

If the 18-year-old Oudin wins this year’s US Open (which is how likely to happen?), Virgin Mobile will donate $1 million to homeless-youth organizations as part of The RE*Generation program. The goal is to raise awareness about the homeless youth in the United States.

Oudin already has deals with BackOffice Associates and AirTran, that both came after her run at the 2009 US Open. (source: Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal, photo: Women Who Serve)

Top seed Maria Sharapova advanced to the semifinals of the Regions Morgan Keegan Championships & the Cellular South Cup, while home favorite and second seed Melanie Oudin got eliminated in the quarterfinals.

Sharapova beat eighth seed Elena Baltacha 6-2 7-5 and will next have No.5 seed Petra Kvitova for opponent. Kvitova defeated third seed Kaia Kanepi 1-6 6-3 7-6(0) after a tough match.

Unseeded 2006 Memphis champion Sofia Arvidsson was the one who upset American Oudin, with the final score 6-1 6-3. Arvidson's opponent in the final four will be Anne Keothavong, the Briton who reached her second straight semifinal in Memphis but is now playing her first WTA main draw event, having been sidelined by knee injury for more than six months. (photo: harjanto sumali)

Our dear reader Teerin is contributing to Women's Tennis Blog once again, this time by creating a countdown of the best moments in the 2009 tennis season.

Teerin would like to have been able to include more memorable situations, but YouTube videos can't be more than 10 minutes long. Which WTA moments would you add to Teerin's Top 10? I would include the emotional retirement of Ai Sugiyama and also, I would put Kim Clijsters' US Open win on top of the list.

Teerin, thank you so much for your continuous and active support of Women's Tennis Blog.

Surprise US Open quarterfinalist Melanie Oudin made an appearance on the Ellen Degeneres Show to talk about her spectacular experience at the Grand Slam.

Among other things, Melanie was of course asked to give her opinion about the Serena Williams incident.

Interesting detail: The 17-year-old Melanie has a boyfriend and he’s 15. Hihi.

While the rain is messing up the US Open schedule for the second day in a row, let’s once again talk about the star of the tournament – 17-year-old American Melanie Oudin.

The $175,000 that Oudin earned by reaching the quarterfinals weren’t the only financial benefit the sensation of the US Open took home. The success brought Oudin the biggest endorsement of her career, a multi-year contract with data mining firm BackOffice Associates, believed to be for a six-figure sum guaranteed annually, plus performance bonuses.

Oudin signed the contract just 20 minutes prior to her quarterfinal encounter with Caroline Wozniacki. (sources: On the Baseline, Sports Business Daily)