As early as in November 2012 we got a peek into the Adidas by Stella McCartney apparel for the first half of 2013 and the latest press release by the brand confirms that their biggest star Caroline Wozniacki will wear the blue version of the Barricade summer dress, but also provides detailed information about the brand new Barricade shoes that "fuse advanced technical superiority with standout style".

The dress, highlighted by the adjustable yellow tank straps, available for $120, will be accompanied by lemon Barricade shoes specially designed to endure extreme lateral movements and demanding rallies. The shoe will be available as of June 1 for $125, while its official launch is scheduled for Wimbledon, when it will be worn by all the other Stella representatives, including Maria Kirilenko and Laura Robson.

In non-fashion Caroline Wozniacki news, the Dane today lost her fourth straight first match of a tournament, falling to Zheng Jie in the second round of the Brussels Open after a first-round bye. After recording a rain-delayed victory over American qualifier Mallory Burdette 6-2 4-6 6-3, Zheng proceeded with the winning ways, upsetting the top-seeded 2011 Brussels champion Wozniacki 6-2 6-4 by hitting twice as many winners than her opponent, while in the department of the unforced errors they were shoulder-to-shoulder.

Samantha Stosur's horror story at her home Grand Slam continued when the Australian blew a 5-2 lead in the third set to succumb to Zheng Jie  6-4 1-6 7-5 in the second round of the Australian Open. Stosur has now lost seven of her last nine matches in Australia (including the first rounds in Brisbane and Sydney this year) and has never been past the fourth round at Melbourne Park in eleven tries.

Stosur dropped the first set in 54 minutes, but her 5-2 lead in the third set made it look like she was on a good way to victory before the bad statistical fact that she had won only six Grand Slam matches from 37 tries after losing the first set came to haunt her. Stosur twice failed to serve it out and then dropped serve yet again, giving out the match with a double fault. Interestingly, Zheng has won four matches since Tokyo last year and two of them against Stosur.

The loss of Australian highest-ranked player makes the Australian Open women's singles draw without home players after Day 3.

Maria Sharapova advanced to the third round with her second straight double bagel! Actually, she's the first woman to have done so at a Grand Slam since 1985, before Sharapova was even born! In the first round her victim was Olga Puchkova in 55 minutes and today Misaki Doi in 47 minutes. Can you believe this: Sharapova has lost an average of just 1.5 games per match in the first week of non-grass majors in 2012/2013! (sources: Sydney Morning Herald, Chris Skelton's Twitter, photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Omair is known for his statistical contributions to Women's Tennis Blog, but as of Roland Garros he started doing post-Grand Slam awards, giving WTA players awards they deserved on the account of their performance. You will see how the tables are turning all the time – within just a month Serena improved from the Biggest Disappointment to Grass Empress, while Maria Sharapova downgraded from the Clay Queen to the Biggest Disappointment.

Serena Williams – GRASS EMPRESS

Serena Williams was coming off a first-round defeat at Roland Garros, her first ever first-round exit at Grand Slam, but she rebounded beautifully, reminding us that she still is the player to beat on grass. The American defeated three of the Top 4 players on her way to the Wimbledon 2012 title - Petra Kvitova in the quarterfinals (world No.4 and defending champion), Victoria Azarenka in the semis (world No.2 and reigning Australian Open champion) and Agnieszka Radwanska in the final (world No.3). To top that off, Serena went on to win the doubles title as well, with sister Venus Williams.

Agnieszka Radwanska – FINESSE QUEEN

In today's game of power and big hitters, in making the Wimbledon final Radwanska showed us with her crafty play and her court sense that there still is room for finesse players. She did what neither Petra Kvitova, nor Victoria Azarenka managed to do, i.e. take a set off Serena Williams. Before Wimbledon, Radwanska was the only member of the Top 15 never to have made a Grand Slam semifinal, but she went one step better at Wimbledon making the final and falling in three sets to one of the best grass-court players ever. Read more »

Every Grand Slam is a unique opportunity for tennis fashion to step up and shine in the best light, so here at Women's Tennis Blog I always compile a collage of WTA photos to show the variety of styles in one place. For this French Open I played with movie making a bit and made this slideshow video. I hope you like it! Of course, don't forget to click the YouTube "Like" button if you do!

I included a lot of brands in the video, so that you get as comprehensive picture as possible. You can see players wearing Nike, Adidas,  Lotto, Reebok, Anta, Lacoste, Asics, Under Armour, EleVen, Fila and Adidas by Stella McCartney.

As you'll notice in the video, my pick for the best look of the 2012 French Open is Serena Williams, even though her display of the three-shade green Nike dress lasted for just one match (a long and exciting one, though). Also perfect was Ana Ivanovic and all the others who sported the Adidas Adizero style in lime and core energy.

Who's on your best-dressed list?

It's awesome being regular with these fashion overviews, so now we can easily refer to the past and compare. Check out Roland Garros designs in the past two years.

• 2011: Spring tennis fashion Roland Garros edition
• 2010: Roland Garros fashion radar – WTA outfits

Also, compare the claycourt looks with the styles sported on the blue courts in the Australian sun at Melbourne 2012.

In life and in tennis we like to recognize some patterns and predict future based on current facts. Our stats analyst Omair made sure to present us the historical patterns of the Australian part of the season and the chances of an Australian Open tune-up tournament winner to lift the trophy at the Australian Open. You'll see that the Sydney winner is the most likely, which was the case this year with Victoria Azarenka.

A few days before the Australian Open I found some interesting things regarding the winners of the Australian Open warm-up events and their performance at the Australian Open that year. There are four warm-up events which pave the way for the players to get into some form for the first Grand Slam of the year:

• Brisbane
• Auckland
• Hobart
• Sydney

Let's have a look at how well this year's winners performed at the Australian Open and how they compared to the winners of previous years and their performances at the Australian Open that year. Please note that for this article I used the results of Sydney and Auckland from 1988 onwards, since it was from 1988 that all the players played from the first round of the 128 player draw for the Grand Slam.

BRISBANE

• Best Australian Open result in the respective year: quarterfinals
• 2012: Kaia Kanepi won Brisbane and lost in the second round of the Australian Open

The Brisbane tournament started way back in 1997, and was known as Gold Coast back then. The name of the tournament was changed in 2009 to the Brisbane International. This year the Brisbane event went Premier. The first ever winner of the tournament back in 1997 was Elena Likhovtseva who defeated Ai Sugiyama in the final. Elena Likhovtseva could not carry on the momentum to the Australian Open and lost in the first round, while Sugiyama lost in the second round of the Australian Open that year.

The best result a Brisbane winner so far had at the Australian Open was a quarterfinal showing. Three players achieved that feat. Venus Williams was the first Brisbane player to reach the Australian Open quarterfinal back in 2002 when she won the Brisbane event. Venus lost to 8th-seeded Monica Seles in three sets. Patty Schnyder in 2005 and Petra Kvitova in 2011 followed in the footsteps of Venus Willaims and went on to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open after winning the event in the respective years. Schnyder lost in three sets to 19th-seeded Nathalie Dechy, while Kvitova lost in straight sets to second-seeded Vera Zvonareva.

Kaia Kanepi won the Brisbane event this year. Based on the history of the Brisbane winners and their performance at the Australian Open, Kanepi's chances of making it out the second round were 67%.

Twice in the tournament's 15-year history has the Brisbane winner lost in the second round, Kanepi with her second round showing this year made it thrice in the 16-year history of the tournament. Many dubbed Kanepi as the dark horse for the Australian Open after her strong showing at the Brisbane event, however, Kanepi could not carry that momentum and fell victim of Ekaterina Makarova, who would go on to crush Serena Williams, five-time Australian Open champion, in the fourth round.

Brisbane winner has yet to move beyond the quarterfinal stage of the Australian Open, and with the event going Premier this year, this statistic will for sure change in the years to come. Although, I had hoped that this statistic will change this year since the field at Brisbane was very strong with the likes of Kim Clijsters, Serena Williams, Samantha Stosur.

AUCKLAND

• Best Australian Open result in the respective year: semifinals
• 2012: Zheng Jie won Auckland and lost in the fourth round of the Australian Open Read more »