Defending champion Ana Ivanovic reached the semifinals of the BNP Paribas Open without playing, as her opponent Sybille Bammer withdrew before their match due to a left shoulder injury.

Serbian fifth seed Ivanovic will next meet Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.  The Russian teenager upset seventh-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland 7-6(8) 6-4 in the quarters and reached her first Sony Ericsson WTA Tour semifinal. The world No.42 Pavlyuchenkova, who had eliminated second seed Jelena Jankovic in the second round, saved two set points down 6-5 and 7-6 in the tiebreak to take the all-important opening set.

The first career meeting of Ivanovic and Pavlyuchenkova, as well as the other semifinal featuring No.4 seed Vera Zvonareva and No.8 seed Victoria Azarenka, will take place on Friday. (source: Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, photo: ivanovic-ana.com)

Dinara Safina had a chance of overtaking Serena Williams’ No.1 ranking. Had Safina reached the finals at Indian Wells she would have climbed to the top of the rankings, but the Russian lost to Victoria Azarenka 6-7 6-1 6-3 in the quarterfinals.

Safina is aware that the ranking will come with improved game, and she believes the key is to return her aggressiveness on court.

I'm not thinking about this [the ranking] because if it comes, it comes. If I play like this, definitely it will not come. I played three rounds before and I was struggling with every player that I'm playing. With everyone I played, they were either serving for the set, or had set points. I have to finally start playing my game, because I'm not playing it. I just want for the next tournament (in Miami next week) to finally play my game and play like I've been playing like last year. Since Australia, I'm playing defensive, and it's not me. I just want to play aggressive.

(source: Reuters, photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Defending champion Ana Ivanovic beat Argentina's Gisela Dulko 6-3 6-3 to advance at the BNP Paribas Open.

The Serbian fifth seed didn’t score a too convincing victory, but was good enough to advance to the fourth round where she’ll face Italian 12th seed Flavia Pennetta.

"When it was very close on both sets I stepped up a little bit more and I just went for my shots and followed my instincts. I played really well," Ivanovic told reporters.

Ivanovic’s new coach, Craig Kardon, is definitely helping her game.

"I had lots of doubts about my game in the past six months," said the world No.7. "So finally I feel like I have strategy and also a plan in place again. It gives me a lot of security and confidence." (source: Reuters, photo: ivanovic-ana.com)

A reader suggested an interesting article from Los Angeles Times, which analyzes how much Serena and Venus Williams are compromising because of not entering the BNP Paribas Open, and also how much Maria Sharapova is missing for playing doubles only. Here we’ll focus on world No.1 Serena Williams only.

The annual prize money is increased from $63.6 to $84.4 million. The Top 10 players who participate in all four premier tournaments, one of which is the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, will share a bonus pool, worth $1.9 million. Player with season-ending No.1 ranking will earn $400,000.

However, if you don't play in one of the four events, for whatever reason, you get no money and no ranking points. Plus, you will be fined for skipping the tournament unless you participate in a tour-mandated public relations event. Were Serena Williams to skip her makeup duty, she will be fined $75,000.

Here’s how LA Times sums it up mathematically:

If Serena finishes No. 1, her first loss would be the $400,000 from the bonus pool. If she decides to ignore the makeup appearance, that would be another $75,000. By not playing, she misses a chance at first-place money here of $700,000. Were she to team with Venus and win the doubles, that would be $118,500, her half of $237,000. That's $1,293,500.

Then, there are endorsements. One WTA official speculated that Serena's Nike contract, just as one example, "might have as much as two million dollars of incentive money for ending up No. 1." Winning at Indian Wells is worth 1,000 ranking points. Serena, who now leads No.2 Dinara Safina by 422, gets zero.

So, conceivably, Serena's rejection of Indian Wells could have cost her more than $3 million, or about 13% of her career tennis winnings of $23 million.

Well, it's great when you have so much money to lose. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Jelena Jankovic’s bad results are becoming worrying. We know she’s struggling to bring her form back, but this latest second-round loss at the BNP Paribas Open is only deepening the despair.

The second-seeded Jankovic was upset by young Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-4 6-4. The 17-year-old Pavlyuchenkova, ranked 42th in the world, scored her first Top 10 victory.

"Last year I finished No.1 in the world and I was playing great tennis, especially at the end of the year. This year I'm not the same player," Jankovic said. "I'm struggling to find my game and the confidence on the court. She played well. Obviously she was the better player. But I'm not at my level."

Third seed Elena Dementieva was also stunned, but her loss is much less worrying than Jankovic’s. Dementieva has won two WTA titles this year and overall has been amazing in 2009, so we can understand her tiredness.

Dementieva was erratic and hit 14 double faults before falling to qualifier Petra Cetkovska 7-6(2) 2-6 6-1 in the second round of Indian Wells.

"That was probably my worst match in a long time," Dementieva said. "Every time you lose you're trying to learn something. I feel I shouldn't have come here because I played a lot of matches at the beginning of the year, and I probably needed more time off to recover."

Ana Ivanovic didn’t suffer the same faith as Jankovic and Dementieva. After losing the first three games of the match, the fifth seed won 12 of the next 16 games and beat Belarusian qualifier Anastasiya Yakimova, 6-4 6-3. (source: Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Sixth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, who has reached the final at Indian Wells for the last two years, fell in the second round to wildcard Urszula Radwanska. Top seed Dinara Safina survived a tough test before beating Tsvetana Pironkova.

Kuznetsova was overpowered by the world No.107 Radwanska 6-2 4-6 6-3, despite a comeback in the second set.

Safina saved multiple set points in the first-set tiebreak before easing through the second set and beating the Bulgarian world No.50 7-6(8) 6-2. Safina will meet seed No.28 Shuai Peng of China in the third round of the BNP Paribas Open.

Safina, ranked 2nd in the world, can replace Serena Williams atop the WTA Tour rankings by reaching the Indian Wells final, as Williams is not playing the tournament. (sources: ESPN, Reuters, photo by our reader Jacob)

Maria Sharapova played her first competitive match since last August, paired with Elena Vesnina at the BNP Paribas Open. The Russians lost to Ekaterina Makarova and Tatiana Poutchek 6-1 4-6 10-7 in the first round.

Despite the defeat, Sharapova is glad to be back:

It feels pretty good, it's pretty amazing. I came here and just wanted to test it out. I started training a couple of months ago and I thought I'd test it out in a match situation and play in front of a crowd, and it was exciting.

The disappointing fact is that Sharapova is still not ready for high-intensity competition:

I think the hump I've got to get through right now is to put two weeks of playing two, three sets every single day, for two weeks and feeling great, 100 percent. Right now I am able to do maybe three days, four days and then I have to take it easy on the fifth. Obviously that's not the way to go about a tournament in singles, so that's what I am working up to right now and whenever that comes, that's when I'll be playing singles.

The 21-year-old Sharapova hadn’t played doubles since mid-2005, but chose to make her return to tennis after a seven-month absence slowly, and hence opted for avoiding singles at the beginning. (source: ESPN, photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Jelena Dokic couldn’t repeat her Australian Open heroics, losing in the first round of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.

The 2009 Australian Open quarterfinalist, who has risen from No.178 to No.80 in the rankings this year, lost in straight sets to 34-year-old American Jill Craybas 6-4 6-2.

Dokic said she may have been mentally beaten before taking the court against Craybas. The Australian also said: "I'm really, really struggling mentally. I need to just settle down and get myself together again."

In her only other outing since Melbourne, the 25-year-old Dokic was defeated in the opening round of Memphis by top seed Caroline Wozniacki. (source: ESPN, photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Now it’s official: Maria Sharapova will start her return from shoulder injury by playing doubles at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells.

Besides confirming that she’s playing doubles at the next week’s tournament, Sharapova commented on the recovery process on her official website:

I am excited to be playing competitive tennis again. The healing process takes time, and requires things to move more slowly than I would like, but I am taking things one step at a time. I look forward to playing at the BNP Paribas Open, it is definitely one of my favorite tournaments in the world. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Yesterday we had unofficial information that Maria Sharapova won’t return from her injury at Indian Wells, but the latest news at TennisReporters.net is that she will play the BNP Paribas Open, but only the doubles competition.

Sharapova, who hasn’t played doubles since mid-2005, will team up with Elena Vesnina for the first time, but is expected to return to singles at the following event in Miami at the end of month.

The 21-year-old’s surgically repaired right shoulder still gets fatigued after three consecutive days of two out of three set matches and her doctors aren’t convinced that it’s a good idea to push it in singles during the next two weeks.

Sharapova has won three doubles titles in her career: 2004 Birmingham with Maria Kirilenko, and 2003 titles in Tokyo and Luxembourg with Tamarine Tanasugarn. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)