Serena Williams simply continued the momentum from 2012 and breezed to the Brisbane International title, her 47th career title, the most among active WTA players. Varvara Lepchenko was her victim in the first round (6-2 6-1), Alize Cornet in the second (6-2 6-2), Sloane Stephens in the quarterfinals (6-4 6-3) and then after a semifinal walkover when Victoria Azarenka withdrew with an infected toe, Serena had just a 51-minute work against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the final.

From 2-all in the first set, the third-seeded Williams took seven straight games and quickly went all the way to a 6-2 6-1 victory and $162,987 in prize money.

Pavlyuchenkova, who upset No.6 seed Petra Kvitova and No.4 seed Kerber earlier in the tournament, was playing her first Premier final, but against the super-experienced Serena there was nothing she could do. Here's what Pavlyuchenkova said to Serena after the match:

I always feel like I don't know how to play tennis when I play against you!

I'm sure she's far from the only one with that problem.

In the off-season, Serena and Pavlyuchenkova practiced together in Mauritius as part of the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy training camp.

Serena has now won 52 of her last 54 matches! (photo: sr_cranks)

Awaiting Serena Williams in the Brisbane International semifinals, Victoria Azarenka had a lot to fear, considering her 0-5 record against the American in 2012 and 1-11 all time, but her bigger enemy turned out to be a bad pedicure. Her big toe got infected so much that it was too painful to move and she had to withdraw from the tournament half an hour before her semifinal was scheduled to start.

Azarenka has struggled with the problem for about ten days. Eventually, she had to have a part of her right toe nail removed and she didn't have enough time to recover for the semifinal, plus, she didn't want to endanger her title defense at the Australian Open.

Serena is now through to the final of the Premier-level Brisbane International, where she will face Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who stopped lucky loser Lesia Tsurenko, first-time WTA semifinalist, with a 4-6 6-1 6-2 win. Serena has won 51 of her last 53 matches! Plus, she's 3-0 against Pavlyuchenkova. (photo: sr_cranks)

World No.1 Victoria Azarenka advanced to the semifinals of the Brisbane International with a 6-1 6-0 victory over Ksenia Pervak, the qualifier who upset former No.1 Caroline Wozniacki in the first round, but had little left in her tank after two third-set tiebreaks in wins over the Dane and Urszula Radwanska.

The Brisbane tournament debuted in 2009 and Azarenka was its first champion, but back than it was a lower-level tournament, i.e. International, while in 2012 it was upgraded to Premier. Last season Azarenka's Australian swing was perfect, with the Sydney and Australian Open titles, but this is the first time since the inaugural year that Azarenka is playing Brisbane. Another thing to note about Brisbane is that in 2013 its prize money has increased to $1 million, while last year it was $655,000, and before it was $220,000.  Read more »

This year's retrospections of WTA players' outfits we opened with fashion queen Maria Sharapova and her Nike designs, but right after her I think it's most fair to feature the great tennis champion Kim Clijsters who hung up her racket after the 2012 US Open, causing her clothing sponsor Fila to lose its most recognizable endorser.

Fila signed Clijsters eleven year ago and in 2005 the company decided to sponsor the Belgian for the duration of her career. The Italian sportswear brand was aware that they would lose their brightest star, so early this year they concluded new contracts, with Vera Zvonareva and Jelena Jankovic. Of course, Svetlana Kuznetsova is still with them, she's also their long-time endorser.

Let's move on to the overview of Fila 2012 style. As you can see, their signature clean lines, sporty designs and colors of red, blue/black and white were predominant. Just a note, at the Australian Open, besides the black skirt and white V-neck shirt, Clijsters wore an all-black outfit with lime details. Read more »

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 »

At the Brisbane International, which is now a Premier tournament, Kaia Kanepi won her second and biggest title after beating Daniela Hantuchova 6-2 6-1 in the final. Her maiden WTA title came two years ago at the International-level event in Palermo.

The first to lead, 2-1, was Hantuchova, but from then on Kanepi won nine straight games and in the second set she lost just one point in the first four games. 

Kanepi's most thrilling match was in the first round against Alexandra Panova, 121st-ranked qualifier, which ended after more than two hours of play, 7-5 3-6 6-2. Three seeded players followed and the scoreline was more straightforward, often much more: 6-0 6-3 against seed No.7 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, 6-1 7-6(7) against seed No.2 Andrea Petkovic, and 6-3 6-0 against seed No.3 Francesca Schiavone in the semis.

The 26-year-old Kanepi is a significant Estonian in many ways: she's the first from her country to reach a WTA final, the first to play a Grand Slam quarterfinal, the first to crack  Top 20, win a WTA title and beat a regining world No.1 when she defeated Caroline Wozniacki in Tokyo last year.

The prize of $110,000 reached Kanepi's pocket with the Brisbane title and the Estonian is projected to rise from No.34 to No.26 in the rankings. (photo via Brisbane International)

Playing her first tournament since a four-month abdominal injury lay-off, Kim Clijsters had to give up her Brisbane International semifinal against Daniela Hantuchova because of a left hip injury, thus handing the Slovak her second straight uncompleted victory, as Serena Williams gave her a walkover in their quarterfinal due to an ankle problem.

Clijsters won the tiebreak 7-4 and already in that first set she felt stiffening, which was getting worse. She didn't want to risk and cause a complete spasm and muscle tear, so she stopped while trailing 3-1 in the second set.

Australian Open title defense is just a week and a half away for Clijsters. Tomorrow she will have an MRI to check the seriousness of the injury, but she's not blindly optimistic: "I don't doubt that there will be a problem once I start in Melbourne".

Hantuchova's opponent in the final will be Kaia Kanepi, who defeated Francesca Schiavone 6-3 6-0 in the semifinals.

Additional info: The 2012 season has barely started, and it seems that my New Year's wishes are not coming true – injuries are already piling up. Besides Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters, Sabine Lisicki is having a left abdominal muscle injury, Ksenia Pervak migrane, Polona Hercog low back injury, and not to mention Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova who have delayed their beginning of the season due to illness and injury. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Two surprising fashion switches welcomed us at the very start of 2012. Without prior notice, Jelena Jankovic took the 2012 courts in Fila and not in Anta which had been her clothing sponsor for three years. Samantha Stosur also made an apparel change and substituted her Lacoste tennis clothes with Asics, whose shoes she has been wearing for two years.

No official information on Jankovic's cooperation with Fila has been announced yet, but the world No.14 debuted her possible new clothing sponsor in the first round of the Brisbane International, in the match against Carla Suarez Navarro. The Fila Center Court Dress was on the courts for two more matches, until Jankovic lost to Francesca Schiavone in a quarterfinal marathon, 5-7 7-6(2) 6-3, after wasting two match points in the second set.

Read more »