In June last year, Maria Sharapova said that she was not on Twitter because her daily routine was not worth sharing and she couldn't imagine what her life would look like if she added tweeting to her daily activities on top of her compulsive texting.

I mean, I'm bored with myself on a daily basis, and I think if I'm bored, like eating a bowl of pasta, I don't need to let the world know that I'm at this restaurant eating a bowl of pasta.

Half a year later and the tennis super star couldn't resist the fad. Just two hours after posting her first tweet, Sharapova already had over 20,000 followers. Read more »

With back-to-back titles in Auckland and Sydney, Agnieszka Radwanska came to the Australian Open as the most prominent player of the season and the Pole started the sunny Grand Slam with a 7-5 6-0 victory over local wildcard world No.307 Bojana Bobusic, thus extending her 2013 streak to 10 matches. The fourth-seeded Radwanska, who has made three quarterfinals at Melbourne Park, dropped serve three times in the first set and saw her opponent serving for the first set at 5-4, before finding her range and benefiting from Bobusic's 41 unforced errors. Next for Radwanska is Irina-Camelia Begu.

You know that you're the whole package in the WTA world when you accompany your great success at tennis tournaments with big sponsorships and fancy photoshoots. The 23-year-old Radwanska now has that kind of lifestyle.  Read more »

Maria Sharapova's marketability ensured that her luxury brand of sweets Sugarpova, launched in August 2012 in New York, is about to see a %120 return on investment and is now spreading internationally, in particular, ahead of the Australian Open, the Russian organized an official Melbourne Sugarpova launch. But health concerns raised over the sugary product may spoil Sharapova's image.

The average bag of Sugarpova candy has 84 grams of sugar, equivalent to two cans of Coca Cola, and child psychologist Dr Justin Coulson labeled the tennis star's nudging people towards an "unhealthy habit" as "simply irresponsible", especially given the amount of influence she has. Read more »

Omair has been a regular contributor on Women's Tennis Blog, but now he has his own website and in the days leading up to the Australian Open he employed his love of stats to predict how Top 8 seeds will perform at the first Grand Slam of the season.

Omair's position in the articles is purely statistical, as he evaluated players' chances based on the past performance of players having the same seeding and based on the previous Australian Open results of the respective players. It's nice to see a statistical aspect, but you know that much more plays a part in whether a player will succeed, like who is in their section of the draw, possible injuries, mental preparation, etc.

Nevertheless, let's see the statistical analysis for each of our Top 8 stars:

• Victoria Azarenka and Australian Open 2013 - No.1 seed
• Maria Sharapova and Australian Open 2013 - No.2 seed
• Serena Williams and Australian Open 2013 - No.3 seed
• Agnieszka Radwanska and Australian Open 2013 - No.4 seed
• Angelique Kerber and Australian Open 2013 - No.5 seed
• Li Na and Australian Open 2013 - No.6 seed
• Sara Errani and Australian Open 2013 - No.7 seed
• Petra Kvitova and Australian Open 2013 - No.8 seed

Great work, Omair! I know you poured in a lot of your free time in these articles!

Subsequent addition: Check out Omair's analysis of the women's singles draw.

After triumphing at the Brisbane International, Serena Williams took off to Melbourne and has been there this week, seriously preparing for the Australian Open. But you know that WTA stars always do more than just practice and tennis. Yesterday in Melbourne, the American launched the Nike Training Club app that provides various workout plans with multiple difficulty levels and presented her Australian Open dress - Nike Women's Grand Pleated Knit Dress.  Read more »