The Czech Republic successfully defended the Fed Cup trophy, dominating the Serbian team 2-0 on Saturday, and even though on Sunday Ana Ivanovic gave Serbia a slight ray of hope by beating the highest-ranked Czech Petra Kvitova in the first match of the day, Lucie Safarova's rocking winners against Jelena Jankovic finished the job for the Czechs in Prague. Read more »

The Czech Republic made a strong start to their Fed Cup title defense with two comfortable victories over Serbia, whose chances for maiden Fed Cup crown look very slim.

Lucie Safarova and Ana Ivanovic took the court first. The match was opened by Ivanovic holding her serve after fending off a break point, but that was as much of a lead the Serb had in the match, as Safarova went up a break in the third game, and even though Ivanovic leveled to 2-2, another break in the seventh game sealed the Serb's fate. Safarova continued her solid game in the second set and beat Ivanovic, who was coming back from a hip injury sustained in Moscow, 6-4 6-3 for the fourth straight time. Read more »

Women's Tennis Blog is back! Sorry for this week of absence. I traveled to Brussels and I had expected I would be updating my blog, but access to the Internet was too expensive and complicated so I decided to make a short break. Anyways, there was only the Fed Cup going on over the weekend and Serbia and the Czech Republic became the finalists when Serbia defeated Russia 3-2 and the Czechs defeated Italy 4-1 in the semis. The Fed Cup final will be played in the beginning of November.

Let's see what else happened this past week:

• Kim Clijsters is still recovering from her hip injury and will skip the French Open.
• Svetlana Kuznetsova shocked with a new haircut.
• Jelena Jankovic is reportedly on a trial with coach Zeljko Krajan, who has stopped working with Dominika Cibulkova this month. Krajan is most famously known for his cooperation with Dinara Safina.
• Andrea Petkovic returned to action for the first time since Sydney, playing the Fed Cup, but lost her singles rubber to Sam Stosur.
• Caroline Wozniacki released music video for "Oxygen".
• Maria Sharapova turned 25 on April 19. Yes, just 25!

Referring to her statement in the Telegraph:

I think tennis players are actually underpaid, but I might be a little biased. I like to think we are rewarded for the hard work we put in.

Thanks for the patience, friends. From tomorrow I'll resume normal posting.

The 2011 Fed Cup final between Russia, four-time titlist in the last seven years, and the Czech Republic was decided by a doubles clash between Czechs Lucie Hradecka and Kveta Peschke and Russians Maria Kirilenko and Elena Vesnina with the Czech team winning 6-4 6-2 to secure a 3-2 lead and defeat Russia on home soil, which hadn't happened to Russia since 2003. Read more »

Members of Serbian Fed Cup and David Cup teams were handed over diplomatic passports by Serbian Foreign Minister, Vuk Jeremic, during the Serbia Open ATP event in Belgrade. WTA players Bojana Jovanovski and Ana Jovanovic were present at the ceremony, beside their male colleagues Janko Tipsarevic, Nenad Zimonjic, Viktor Troicki and Novak Djokovic. The best two Serbian WTA players, Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic, did not attend the official event, but they will receive the passports. Read more »