For the sixth year in a row, Women's Tennis Blog is using the relaxed off-season period to review the on-court styles of our top players and brands. Of course, who else will kick off the series than our fashion darling Maria Sharapova. Let's see what the Russian wore in the year that saw her complete a Career Slam and win the Olympic silver.

In 2012, the Nike-clad Sharapova continued her subdued sporty femininity. Glamour, layers, frills and popping details have not described the Russian's tennis style since last year. Of course, Masha is still the most glamorous WTA player, but on court that glamour is toned down now, fitting the simple, everyday wearable category. There still are details in her designs, but you have to look deeper to find them.

White with electric green accents was Sharapova's color combination for the Australian sun and it transcended to the indoor hardcourt of Coubertin Stadium in Paris.

At Indian Wells, the 25-year-old wore a blue dress with light blue scales on the sides and in the back, matching the color of the straps.

*Visit the full list of retrospections of WTA players' yearly outfits*

Very ordinary red tanks followed for four tournaments, paired with simple white and black skirts. Read more »

Two years after the couple first met at the 2009 Madrid Open, on Wednesday, July 27th, 2011, Gisela Dulko married Argentine footballer Fernando Gago. Now around their first wedding anniversary, we're featuring the lovers in our WTA Players and their Boyfriends/Husbands series.

The wedding took place in the Palermo district of Buenos Aires, while the celebration with 400 guests was at a lavish Tattersal salon reception. According to our reader Luciana, Dulko and Gago first lived in Rome, while now they're living in Madrid. Read more »

Red clay, green clay, blue clay – it's all the same for Serena Williams, even though it's her least favorite surface. The American became the first champion on the infamous blue clay by demolishing world No.1 Victoria Azarenka in the final of the Mutua Madrid Open.

The top-seeded Azarenka finished the first set with a double fault and the match with an awkward missing of the ball and that can pretty much sum up the short Madrid final which lacked in competitiveness and rallies. In the third game of the match, trailing 0-2, Azarenka made three double faults to drop serve again and then quickly go even further down, 0-4, before winning her first game, which didn't mean much as Serena soon won the set 6-1. The second set was not a very different story, only that Azarenka won two more games. Final score: 6-1 6-3.

Serena hit 14 aces to Azarenka's zero! And Azarenka had only six winners in the entire match, compared to Williams' 26. Moreover, Williams won an astonishing 91% points on first serve, while Azarenka won 63%.

All in all, Serena stormed through the tournament to stay unbeaten in her last 13 matches on clay, losing a set only to Caroline Wozniacki in the Madrid quarterfinals. Besides Wozniacki and Azarenka, Serena also defeated Elena Vesnina, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, second seed Maria Sharapova and Lucie Hradecka en route to the Ion Tiriac trophy and $631,000 in prize money. The Mutua Madrid Open title is Serena's 41st career title! (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

At the Mutua Madrid Open, world No.105 Lucie Hradecka was enjoying the best tournament of her career, with landmark victories over defending champion and world No.4 Petra Kvitova in the second round and world No.5 Samantha Stosur in the quarterfinals, her first Top 10 wins, and even in the semifinal against Serena Williams, which the Czech qualifier entered after spending a total of nine hours playing matches on the courts of Madrid this year, Hradecka went shoulder to shoulder with the American, before one double fault determined Serena as the winner of the first set, and soon after the match.

Both Hradecka and Williams are big and solid servers and that's what translated into this match. Only in her main draw matches, Hradecka hit 57 aces (Williams' score is 41)! Neither Hradecka nor Williams dropped serve in the first set. Serena did have two break points at 4-3, but Hradecka confidently saved both. Also, at 6-5 Serena earned two set points, but again Hradecka was strong. In the tiebreak Hradecka made a fatal double fault to hand Serena another chance to win the set, which the American used and from then on the match was absolutely hers. In the second set Hradecka won a total of just six points! Final score: 7-6(5) 6-0.

Williams is now 12-0 on clay this year, losing just one set in those 12 matches, and the player standing between her and her 41th WTA title is world No.1 Victoria Azarenka, who defeated third-ranked Agnieszka Radwanska for the sixth straight time this year, 6-2 6-4! (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

In the Madrid Open quarterfinals, ninth seed Serena Williams cruised past second seed Maria Sharapova 6-1 6-3 for her sixth straight win against a Top 2 player and her seventh straight win against Sharapova. Serena’s opponent in the semifinals will be Lucie Hradecka, whose dream run continued when after third seed Petra Kvitova and Ekaterina Makarova she upset fifth seed Samantha Stosur 7-6(8) 7-6(6), hitting 19 aces in a match that had no breaks in regular games, as Hradecka saved four of four break points and Stosur one of one.

Top seed Victoria Azarenka put her dissatisfaction with the slippery blue clay aside and found a way to beat Li Na despite losing the first set in which the Chinese played "unbelievable", as Azarenka said. Final score 3-6 6-3 6-3. Azarenka’s opponent in the semis will be fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska who beat Varvara Lepchenko 6-4 6-4. Infamously, Azarenka and Radwanska have played each other five times this year (and it's only May!), and each time Azarenka won. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)