Action began at the season-ending tournament of Bali, and unlike at the let's call it Premier season-ending tournament of Istanbul, the Bali eight-women draw doesn't have the round-robin format preceding the semifinals, but rather regular quarterfinals, semifinals and the title match. Therefore, after the first day of action we already have one semifinal pair: Ana Ivanovic and Nadia Petrova.

Ivanovic served up a 6-3 6-3 victory over Roberta Vinci, the player with whom she made cookies for charity as a pre-tournament activity to raise funds for UNICEF's education projects in Asia-Pacific. In her seventh career match with Vinci, defending champion Ivanovic was aggressive and played well. Read more »

Now that the WTA Championships in Istanbul have come to a close, let's shift our attention to the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions which is about to start on November 3 in Bali. The Tour actually announced the draw of the really-season-ending tournament on the day the much more important season-ending tournament commenced (how awkward is that?), but I decided to postpone the Bali talk until Istanbul finishes.

You know that in order to qualify for the event in exotic Bali you have to win an International-level WTA tournament in the ongoing season and not qualify for the WTA Championships in Istanbul which features the best eight singles players of the year. To make things even more complicated, Marion Bartoli did not qualify for Istanbul and was therefore eligible to play Bali, but as the first alternate in Istanbul she did eventually play the event because of Maria Sharapova's withdrawal. Nevertheless, Bartoli is still qualified to play Bali. Pretty messed up. But hey, let's see who's in. Read more »

New York and fashion go hand in hand, and tennis outfits are no exception, especially when we have a high-profile event such as the US Open. So let's see what the manufacturers of tennis clothes prepared for our WTA stars and there is no better way to start than with American Bethanie Mattek Sands who integrated patriotism in her attire.

Don't you love the American-flag tube socks and the accompanying red shoes? Bethanie looks awesome in her Under Armour outfit with accessories that perfectly match the US Open occasion.

Bethanie is known for her experiments with fashion and her most recent took place before and during Wimbledon, when she incorporated tennis balls in her player party and on-court outfits.

Venus Williams shocked with her EleVen US Open dress as much as she did with her subsequent abrupt withdrawal due to a long-undiagnosed syndrome.

Top seed Caroline Wozniacki and Stella McCartney absolutely failed to inspire with a white dress much more suitable for Wimbledon. Why not use colors for the US Open when you can?

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Nadia Petrova started both sets against Ana Ivanovic with a deficit, but the early advantage wasn't enough for the Serb to end up victorious and the Russian won 6-3 7-6(4) at the Western & Southern Open.

The 15th-seeded Ivanovic had a comfortable 6-0 6-2 victory over qualifier Alexa Glatch in the first round, and against Petrova in the second round Ivanovic started the match by breaking her opponent (she quickly lost that advantage, though, when Petrova broke back in the following game) and in the second set Ivanovic established an initial 3-0 lead. However, no advantage was enough to counterbalance Ivanovic's numerous errors, including eleven double faults.

Petrova's next opponent will be Christina McHale, who made the biggest news of the tournament by defeating world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Wimbledon is the most traditional tennis tournament and that conservativeness is reflected in the white clothing rule. But the color restriction is not limiting players to express themselves and challenge the set rules.

Bethanie Mattek Sands is always attracting a lot of attention with her look and for Wimbledon 2011 she reinvented herself in cooperation with Lady Gaga's designer – the jacket adorned with white tennis balls may have challenged the officials, but it is likely to end up in the Wimbledon Museum (one Bethanie's Wimbledon outfit is already there).

Venus Williams' outfit for Wimbledon is the second biggest shocker of the tournament. Her EleVen zipper jumper with an open back is definitely unique, whether you like it or not. I like the piece for bringing something new (it's not a dress, it's not a shorts and a top), but it reminds of pajamas. Also, I don't appreciate the visible brown bra in the back.

Nadia Petrova's message still hasn't reached her sponsor Ellesse, they simply don't want to give up the fluffy outfits.

Let's move on to some good examples. Read more »

Traditionally, Women's Tennis Blog is doing Grand Slam fashion overviews, so let's see what major sports brands have on display at Roland Garros 2011.

World No.1 Caroline Wozniacki brought nothing new to the fashion table of Roland Garros – the 20-year-old Dane, who bowed out of the tournament in the third round already, wore the adidas by Stella McCartney Ruffle Dress which she debuted at Indian Wells in March.

Adidas impressed with an array of bright colors that perfectly contrast/match the red clay of Roland Garros. Above you can see the variety of pink, orange and green combinations on Daniela Hantuchova, Sorana Cirstea, Andrea Petkovic, Maria Kirilenko and Arantxa Rus. Here you can read more about Adidas' French Open collection.

Read more »

Russian world No.22 Nadia Petrova has been drawing a lot of attention with her Ellesse apparel – from her US Open stripes in more than all the colors of the rainbow, to the blue piece pictured above. The Ellesse designs are neither making Petrova look stylish and fashionable, nor flattering her figure in any way. The outfits look like a joke, and as ridiculous as they are, they look even more ridiculous on Petrova (Caroline Wozniacki would look somewhat better in them, for example, or maybe Jelena Jankovic).

Anyway, A Change of Ends chatted with Petrova at the All-Access Hour in Charleston and we learned that Petrova actually hates the clothes Ellesse prepares for her. The interview is hilarous!

Q. Recently you’ve made some pretty bold fash­ion choices on court. How much input…

A. Oh my god. That has noth­ing to do with me. Those are not my choices. Read more »

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 »

This is the fifth and the last part of our series featuring photos of female tennis players and their mothers. Here are the previous four parts: I, II, III and IV.

Marta, an account by profession, is the mother of two tennis stars, Agnieszka Radwanska (pictured above) and Urszula Radwanska.

Katarina Cibulkova is the mother of Dominika Cibulkova. Read more »

All the seeded played that played their quarterfinal matches at the Hansol Korea Open, No.1 seed Nadia Petrova, No.5 seed Alisa Kleybanova and No.8 seed Agnes Szavay, advanced to the semifinals, while in the only quarterfinal played solely by unseeded players Dinara Safina lost to Klara Zakopalova.

Both Petrova and Kleybanova broke their opponents five times. Petrova took 61 minutes to beat Kirsten Flipkens 6-2 6-1, while Kleybanova needed seven minutes more to defeat good friend Ekaterina Makarova 6-1 6-2. Szavay had a much tougher match, but ended defending champion Kimiko Date Krumm’s seven match winning streak at the Hansol Korea Open with a 6-2 6-7(3) 6-3 victory in two hours and 42 minutes.

Former world No.1 Dinara Safina has now lost all her three meetings with Klara Zakopalova, and all the three in straight sets, losing to the Czech 7-5 6-3 in Seoul. (photo: sydney-yokochin)