Top seed Serena Williams lost just three games to advance to the second round of the Australian Open, the tournament she won last year in both singles and doubles. The four-time Australian Open champion defeated Poland's world No.72 Urszula Radwanska 6-2 6-1 and will next play Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic.

Serena’s sister Venus beat Czech Lucie Safarova 6-2 6-2 to advance to the second round. The sixth-seeded Williams will try to improve on her last year’s result, when she was upset in the second round by Carla Suarez Navarro. Venus' opponent in the next round will be Austrian Sybille Bammer.

The sisters will again team up for the doubles competition. (photo: Getty Images)

Tennis players took part in what proved to be a very successful tennis charity event called "Hit for Haiti", which raised over $185,000 for the victims of the recent earthquake.

Women's tennis players Serena Williams, Kim Clijsters and Samantha Stosur joined men's tennis stars Roger Federer, Lleyton Hewitt, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick.

The exhibition was organized on Roger Fereder's initiative, in less than one day, and still, the 15,000-seat Rod Laver Arena was packed.

Some players didn’t play in the exhibition, but donated the money. For example, Maria Sharapova contributed with $10,000. (source: The Canadian Press, photo via Great Tennis Photos)

Russian Elena Dementieva won the Medibank International Sydney title for the second successive year with a 6-3 6-2 victory over Serena Williams in the final.

Williams was troubled by a sore left knee, but said to have suffered just a little bit and gave all the credit to Dementieva, who won the match on the first of her three match points.

The American is not worried about her fitness for the upcoming first Grand Slam of the season and said that the knee hurts just a little bit and that strapping can ease the pain. (source: BBC, photo GREG WOOD/AFP/Getty Images)

Serena Williams and Elena Dementieva reached the final of the Medibank International Sydney. The American did it the more complicated way, while the Russian cruised past her semifinal opponent.

The top-seeded Williams had lost the first set against France's Aravane Rezai and trailed 5-2 in the second set before her vast experience once again took charge and she recovered to win 3-6 7-5 6-4.

Contrary to Williams, defending champion and fifth seed Dementieva wasn’t threatened in her semifinal match, and defeated Victoria Azarenka 6-3 6-1.

Williams has a 7-4 career record against Dementieva. They played as much as six times last year and both of them won three matches. (Photo by Dima Korotayev/Epsilon/Getty Images)

The International Tennis Federation has named world No.1 Serena Williams the 2009 Women’s Singles World Champion, for the second time in her career, and in addition, together with sister Venus, the American received the honor of being the 2009  Women’s Doubles World Champion.

It is the first time since 1999, when Martina Hingis achieved the feat, that a player received both singles and doubles honors.

The awards will be given to the ITF World Champions at the annual ITF World Champions Dinner on June 1, in Paris, during the French Open.

Serena achieved a number of enormous successes in 2009. She won two Grand Slam singles titles (Australian Open and Wimbledon) and three doubles Grand Slam titles (Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open). In addition, the winner of 11 majors in singles and 10 in doubles sealed the No.1 ranking by triumphing at the Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha. (source: On the Baseline, photo via Sony Ericsson WTA Tour)