Serena Williams has been way beyond her competition and yet again, for who knows which time, she reaffirmed it by dominating Victoria Azarenka in the Internazionali BNL d'Italia final and winning her fifth title this season, the fourth consecutive (after Miami, Charleston and Madrid)!

The American is now heading to the French Open with almost perfect record on dirt since the start of the 2012 claycourt season – 33-1 – her only loss being the shocking upset by Virginie Razzano in the first round of the last French Open. This season she's won 16 matches on clay and this week in Rome all the wins were in straight sets, actually she lost a total of just 14 games en route to the Premier-level title and 343,548 EUR prize, beating Laura Robson after a first-round bye, seed No.14 Dominika Cibulkova in the third round, Carla Suarez Navarro in the quarterfinals, the underdog story of the tournament Simona Halep in the semis and finally the third-seeded Azarenka 6-1 6-3, by serving the match out at love after earning a triple match point with back-to-back aces.

This is Serena's 51st career title and her eighth on clay, which makes her the third active WTA player with the biggest number of claycourt titles, after leader Anabel Medina Garrigues (10) and sister Venus Williams (9). (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Serena Williams extended her career-best winning streak to 23 matches, improved to 32-1 on clay since the start of 2012 and is now looking for her fourth consecutive title, after Miami, Charleston and Madrid. Her last obstacle is Victoria Azarenka, who does trail 2-11 in their head-to-head statistics, but she was the one who won their last meeting, the final of Doha in February 2013.

It was a quick semifinal victory for world No.1 Serena Williams over the upsetter of the tournament, Simona Halep, as the American finished the match 6-3 6-0, the only resistance coming from Halep early on when she broke for a 2-1 lead in the first set.

In the second semifinal, the third-seeded Azarenka defeated seventh seed Sara Errani, who will join the Top 5 in the rankings on Monday thus becoming only the second Italian ever to achieve that feat. After storming through the first set, allowing her opponent just a handful of points, Azarenka was made to work in the second set and even had Errani serving for the set at 5-4, but eventually the Belarusian managed to close it out in straights 6-0 7-5. (via WTA Tour, photos: sr_cranks)

First of all, I'm glad to be back after a week-long Orthodox Easter holiday relaxation in the mountains – I got a bit blown away by the laid back lifestyle and nature and didn't feel like turning on my computer But here I am now, tuning back in during the early rounds of the Mutua Madrid Open and this Wednesday's most notable result was Ekaterina Makarova's upset of Victoria Azarenka in the second round.

Never before, in nine previous tries, had Makarova defeated a Top 3 player, and her today's victory is even more notable since Azarenka had been undefeated this season with a 18-0 record and in the first round of Madrid she eliminated last week's Portugal Open champion Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

The world No.3 Azarenka looked to be heading to a straightforward triumph after cruising through the first set 6-1, when the 24th-ranked Makarova raised her game to win the second set and rallied from 1-3 down in the third to score a 1-6 6-2 6-3 victory. At the two previous editions of the Madrid tournament Azarenka finished as the runner-up, but this time it was her first event since withdrawing prior to the Indian Wells quarterfinals in early March due to a right ankle injury. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Victoria Azarenka's scream will be absent from the courts of this years Sony Open Tennis in Miami, as she's withdrawn ahead of her opening match due to a lingering ankle injury that made her withdraw before her Indian Wells quarterfinal against Caroline Wozniacki this month, but her boyfriend Redfoo made sure that the scream is there even when Vika is not playing. His new song entitled "Heart of a Champion" includes the famous grunts at the 1:25 mark and later at the 3:20 mark. You can listen to it here.

It takes the heart of a champion, the fist of a fighter, going the distance to be the survivor.

Azarenka is 17-0 this year with two titles, but has withdrawn from three events. Her replacement in the Miami draw Lauren Davis got from being a lucky loser to becoming a lucky winner, beating Madison Keys 6-1 5-7 7-6(7) in the second round, after trailing 3-6 in the tiebreak and saving three straight match points thanks to Keys' unforced errors.

More in Azarenka news, she took some glamor pics for her new sponsor Red Bull in a New York hotel room, during her stay in the city for the BNP Paribas Showdown earlier this month.

While in Miami, Vika attended the famous Player Party in a daring funky outfit which would've been your average mini skirt and top for ladies' night out, but Vika accompanied it with a see-through gown. Strange, but works on Vika! Also, the Belarusian world No.3 visited children’s hospital in South Florida, signing autographs and posing for photos with children.

Our contributor Omair is continuing his series of comparing the top of the WTA with their corresponding ATP colleagues. So far we've had:

• Introductory article
• Discussion about who would win if Serena faced Djokovic, Azarenka played Federer and Sharapova encountered Murray
• Analysis of who was more consistent over the last 12 months, Maria Sharapova or Andy Murray

People may be saying: "Are you serious, how can you ever compare Roger Federer with Victoria Azarenka? Their careers are completely different: Federer has won 17 Grand Slams, Azarenka just two, etc." You must be thinking that I am going crazy, but seriously, I am not out of my mind. We are talking about the results over the period of last 12 months, not their entire careers. They are both ranked No.2 at the moment, and there is no better way to measure the consistency of both tours than by comparing the results of the top players.

There were a lot interesting things that I noticed while doing these analyses: in my previous article it was that Sharapova won four more matches than Murray despite playing five fewer tournaments, now it's that Federer reached the quarterfinals or better of all the 17 tournaments he played with the exception of one, Federer beat three Top 10 players in two tournaments, Azarenka won 58% of her matches against the Top 4 players, and Azarenka either retired or withdrew from her matches four times during the course of last 12 months.

Azarenka and Federer had few things in common over the course of last 12 months. They remained No.1 for a certain period of time, although for Azarenka the time span was way longer than for Federer. She stayed at the top spot for pretty much the entire 12 months with the exceptions of few weeks, when Sharapova reached the top spot. Each player won one Grand Slam.

Let us see how the two did in the categories we defined in our previous article. The categories highlighted in yellow go in favor of Azarenka, while the ones highlighted in blue go in favor of Federer.

Read more »