Just like last year, Ana Ivanovic overshadowed her overall unsuccessful season, at least in the light of her form of three years ago, by winning the year-ending Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions in Bali. In addition, the Serb celebrated her 24th birthday on the joyous day.

Ivanovic reached the final with two victories in straight sets, against Roberta Vinci in the quarterfinals and Nadia Petrova in the semis. In the last match of the tournament, the focused Ivanovic defeated Anabel Medina Garrigues 6-3 6-0, losing just seven points in the second set, and awoke the hopes of a better 2012.

I think next year is going to be big, and I really want to sort of play tournaments that I'm ready for and really go and take my chances because you know I think especially the first half of the year I have nothing to defend and I can take my opportunities and hopefully keep the level and break the Top 10.

All the players adore the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions, primarily because of the exotic setting in Bali, and it seems that the environment is especially stimulating for Ivanovic. However, the time has come to change the location, and the event will move to Sofia, Bulgaria. As of 2012 and there will be no more sun and sea in the middle of winter. (photos: Roberto Pudyanto)

Ana Ivanovic has a chance to celebrate her 24th birthday by defending her Bali title, having advanced to the final by defeating Nadia Petrova despite a set point against her in the second set. Her opponent in the title match will be Anabel Medina Garrigues whose second straight opponent retired from the match injured. Hopefully she will not bring bad luck to Ivanovic, who has already had an injury scare because of a fall in Bali quarterfinals.

Ivanovic started the match by losing only three points in the first four games and after winning the set the Serb held three points for a 3-0 lead in the second set. That was when Petrova's comeback started, Ivanovic was throwing herself to the ground in entertaining rallies and the Russian even had a set point at 5-4. However, Ivanovic held for 5-5 and finished off the match 6-1 7-5.

Medina Garrigues said she didn't have many retirement victories in her life, but in Bali all her victories in the eight-women field came via retirements. In the quarterfinals it was top seed Marion Bartoli pulling out with an ankle injury, and now in the semifinals Sabine Lisicki retired at 6-3 4-6 4-0 with a back injury. Lisicki took painkillers before the match and despite having great will to continue, after having treatment in the second set and taking the match to the decider, she ran out of gas and ended her participation in Bali. (photos: Robertus Pudyanto)

Top seed Marion Bartoli retired with an ankle injury soon after the start of the third set of her opening match against Anabel Medina Garrigues at the Commonweath Bank Tournament of Champions in Bali. And that wasn't the only blow to the tournament on Friday. An earthquake hit the exotic island so much that the press conference had to be held outside the tournament facility. Luckily it happened after the matches were completed and spectators had already left.

"I’ve never done a press conference like this before," said Daniela Hantuchova who lost her quarterfinal to Sabine Lisicki 7-5 6-2. "It was quite frightening, but we seem to be okay."

Bartoli had to give up the match after two hours and 40 minutes of play, when Medina Garrigues was leading 4-6 7-6(7) 1-0, because of the injury the Frenchwoman sustained in the tiebreaker.

On one of Anabel’s dropshots I really felt my ankle blocked and my whole body went forward on it. It started to hurt a few seconds after and when I got the match point on my serve I really struggled to put any weight on my foot. Everything falls apart from there.

Ironically, this tournament has only a three-year-old history and Bartoli is leaving it injured for the second time. In the inaugural edition she handed the final to Aravane Rezai, while today she held two match points in the second-set tiebreak.

To sum up, the second semifinal pair is Anabel Medina Garrigues vs. Sabine Lisicki. The first semifinal pair was determined yesterday – Ana Ivanovic vs. Nadia Petrova. (photos: Robertus Pudyanto)

Action began at the season-ending tournament of Bali, and unlike at the let's call it Premier season-ending tournament of Istanbul, the Bali eight-women draw doesn't have the round-robin format preceding the semifinals, but rather regular quarterfinals, semifinals and the title match. Therefore, after the first day of action we already have one semifinal pair: Ana Ivanovic and Nadia Petrova.

Ivanovic served up a 6-3 6-3 victory over Roberta Vinci, the player with whom she made cookies for charity as a pre-tournament activity to raise funds for UNICEF's education projects in Asia-Pacific. In her seventh career match with Vinci, defending champion Ivanovic was aggressive and played well.

However, Ivanovic fell in the beginning of the second set and received treatment for her ankle, but hopefully the injury is not serious. We have every reason to believe so as Ivanovic rushed through the second set against Vinci.

Petrova took out Peng Shuai 6-4 6-3 despite going up and down, dropping serve four times and having problems with upper back, which she overcame by adrenaline and the will to win.

The other two quarterfinals will take place on Friday: Marion Bartoli vs. Anabel Medina Garrigues and Sabine Lisicki vs. Daniela Hantuchova. (photos courtesy of Robertus Pudyanto)

Sabine Lisicki is relieving her jetlag in Bali by painting pottery which will be auctioned off for charity. In her blog for the WTA Tour, the German reveals that her parents are also in Bali. Lisicki's mother Elisabeth, a painting and ceramics artist, enjoyed doing art with her daughter, while father Richard was busy taking the pictures for Sabine’s Facebook page.

Lisicki used to be ranked No.218 and thought she would never qualify for Bali, but she had a fantastic 2011 with two WTA titles (Birmingham and Dallas) and Wimbledon semifinals.

The draw ceremony was attended by eight players, looking elegant in batik and kebaya designed by Rico Ananta, officials and the media.

In the opening round top seed Marion Bartoli will face Anabel Medina Garrigues, Sabine Lisicki will play Daniela Hantuchova, defending champion Ana Ivanovic will be challenged by Roberta Vinci, and Peng Shuai is drawn against Nadia Petrova.

(photos courtesy of Robertus Pudyanto)

Now that the WTA Championships in Istanbul have come to a close, let's shift our attention to the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions which is about to start on November 3 in Bali. The Tour actually announced the draw of the really-season-ending tournament on the day the much more important season-ending tournament commenced (how awkward is that?), but I decided to postpone the Bali talk until Istanbul finishes.

You know that in order to qualify for the event in exotic Bali you have to win an International-level WTA tournament in the ongoing season and not qualify for the WTA Championships in Istanbul which features the best eight singles players of the year. To make things even more complicated, Marion Bartoli did not qualify for Istanbul and was therefore eligible to play Bali, but as the first alternate in Istanbul she did eventually play the event because of Maria Sharapova's withdrawal. Nevertheless, Bartoli is still qualified to play Bali. Pretty messed up. But hey, let's see who's in.

Direct qualifiers (in brackets are the titles they won in 2011):

Marion Bartoli (Osaka)
Sabine Lisicki (Birmingham, Dallas)
Roberta Vinci (Barcelona, 's-Hertogenbosch, Budapest)
Daniela Hantuchova (Pattaya City)
Anabel Medina Garrigues (Estoril and Palermo)
Nadia Petrova (College Park)

Wildcards:

Ana Ivanovic
Peng Shuai

Ivanovic and Peng have not won titles this year. Ivanovic is defending champion in Bali, while Peng is the only player in the Top 20 who has not won a WTA title in her career.

Players have gathered in Bali and photographer Robertus Pudyanto caught some beach tennis action of Shuai and Hantuchova.

The Bali tournament in this format was first organized in 2009. This year it will take place from November 3 to November 6. (photos: © Neal Trousdale)

In the mentioned interview Ivanovic stated she would continue to play despite the inflammation in her back, which had probably been present for some time but became evident during the China Open. The Serb said she would exercise caution with the injury and we can assume she didn't change her mind about traveling to Bali after today's loss to the 93rd-ranked Keothavong.

Britain's Keothavong recorded her biggest victory in terms of opponent's ranking by beating the former world No.1 Ivanovic, currently world No.23. The peculiarity of their encounter, their first career meeting, was also that Ivanovic's new coach, Nigel Sears, used to coach Keothavong. The Brit was open about the situation:

It felt a little weird too seeing someone who has helped me so much with my tennis over the years sitting in the opposition's box.

Sears was also discussed in the mentioned interview. Ivanovic has been satisfied with their collaboration, and they are working on improving her game with more structure and consistence. Her goal in 2012 will be to get back to Top 10 and win another Grand Slam. (via Beyond the Baseline, photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Ana Ivanovic asked for a wildcard for the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions and the organizers were glad to make her the first wildcard pick. The Serb played the tournament last year and won the title in the final against Alisa Kleybanova, who is now battling a serious illness of Hodgkin's lymphoma.

The $600,000 Bali tournament gathers eight best performers of the season from International-level events. November 3-6 this year will see the third edition of the tournament. The inaugural Bali was won by Aravane Rezai. (photo: sr_cranks)

To win the last tournament of the WTA calendar unseeded Ivanovic defeated third seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the quarters, Kimiko Date Krumm in the semis, and Alisa Kleybanova 6-2 7-6(5) in the final.

We can now safely say this season can be remembered as a good one when it comes to Ivanovic, even though in July she had her lowest ranking in five years at No.65. The end of the year was good for her, as she won 13 of her last 15 matches and the Bali title will bring her back into the Top 20, for the first time in a little bit over a year.

As for Kleybanova, she was looking for her third title of the year, which would at the same time have been her third career title and her third one in Asia. But despite the defeat in the final, the 21-year-old Russian’s 2010 was her career-best year. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

On the day of her 23th birthday, Ivanovic defeated Kimiko Date Krumm, the only player in the Bali field whom she wasn’t familiar with, and reached the final of the last tournament this season.

The 40-year-old Date Krumm won the first three games of the match and had double set point at 5-3, but Ivanovic then went on a six-game streak to win the first set and lead 2-0 in the second. Still, even though Ivanovic was serving for the match at 5-3 in the second set, Date Krumm managed to stay in there, forced a tiebreak and won it despite trailing at first. The third set was Ivanovic’s, as she broke her opponent in the first and seventh games to move into the final with a 7-5 6-7(5) 6-2 victory.

The other finalist is Alisa Kleybanova, who defeated Daniela Hantuchova 6-3 6-1 in the semis. Kleybanova was the one who took out defending champion Aravane Rezai in the previous round. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)