Have you been wondering about Agnes Szavay? The former world No.13 won back-to-back WTA titles in 2010 (Prague and Budapest), and after the Seoul semifinal in September that year, the Hungarian’s results plunged. Her 2011 was very much affected by illness and back injury, she played only six tournaments where she recorded a total of just four wins. Her last match in 2011 was at Roland Garros, in May.

Szavay’s current ranking has four digits – 1115! In 2012 she finally returned to play, at the Stuttgart qualifying on clay, her favorite surface. She lost her first match 7-6(4) 6-3 to Yvonne Meusburger and even though prior to the tournament she had had great plans of competing in Budapest, Madrid, Roland Garros, and the Olympics, her wishes have faced a setback.

Here’s what Szavay said on her Facebook on April 28, after Stuttgart:

I’m happy to be playing again, and it’s great to be back on court. A lot of people were asking me how I was, what I’ve been doing and it was nice to be around the players again. Playing matches is completely different than practice, and of course my back reacts differently, and it got a little stiff already in the first set. Unfortunately it’s not perfect yet, so I’ve decided to withdraw from Madrid. I’ll be focusing on Roland Garros and I hope to be there.

Now we know that even Roland Garros is out of option. The next tournament at which we can expect to see Szavay is Bastad in mid-July. Read more »

Playing only her second match at a WTA tournament after being sidelined with a lower back injury for three months, Andrea Petkovic tore ligaments in her right ankle in the second round of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart against world No.1 Victoria Azarenka and a scan on Friday revealed that she would not be able to play for another three months. Andrea herself is not mentioning the state of her injury on her social networking profiles, this piece of information is from Tennis.com. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

For the first time in five WTA finals against Victoria Azarenka, Maria Sharapova managed to come out victorious and she's done it in style, with a confident 6-1 6-4 win at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart. Making her debut at the tournament, Sharapova, perfect on her serve, claimed her first title in 2012, 25th in career and fourth on clay.

Unlike Azarenka, who only in the fourth game didn't miss her first serve and actually scored a point on it, Sharapova had a 90% winning percentage on first serve after eight games of the match, while in the end that percentage was 84. Azarenka's winning on first serve was not bad eventually, 76%, but on the second serve it was only 22%.

Sharapova opened the match with a 3-0 lead, and the second break for 5-1 quickly determined Azarenka's faith. The second set was more close, but Sharapova's break in the seventh game provided her with the advantage which Azarenka was unable to overcome and Sharapova finished the match serving to love.

After a first round bye, the second-seeded Sharapova beat Alize Cornet, fifth seed Samantha Stosur, third seed Petra Kvitova, and finally the tournament's top seed, who claimed to be satisfied with her performance at the tournament despite the loss in the final. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Nine percent break point conversion rate, that's what best describes Petra Kvitova's performance in the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix semifinal against Maria Sharapova. In the end, Sharapova won just two points more than her opponent and advanced to her fourth final of the season with a 6-4 7-6(3) victory.

Whether the Russian will win her first title of 2012 will be determined in the final against top seed Victoria Azarenka, who cruised past Agnieszka Radwanska 6-1 6-3, which is her fifth victory over the Pole this year (actually, Radwanska hasn't lost to anyone else this season).

In the first set, at 2-2 Sharapova led 40-0 on Kvitova's serve, and even though the Czech didn't give the game away easily, Sharapova used her fourth break opportunity to earn a crucial break of the set which she eventually won 6-4.

The second set was even steadier result-wise, as the first break of serve happened in the eleventh game. But what was frustrating for the third-seeded Kvitova was that she had eight break opportunities until 5-5, including a set point, while Sharapova had none, and after saving that set point and winning her service game, in the eleventh game Sharapova broke Kvitova's serve. It wasn't over, though. Serving for the match, the second-seeded Sharapova needed to fend off more break opportunities and Kvitova finally converted her 11th one to force a tiebreak. The momentum was Sharapova's still, and she ended Kvitova's 27 indoor match winning streak.

By the way, notice that the semifinals of Stuttgart featured the top four ranked players. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Maria Sharapova squeezed past Samantha Stosur in a gruelling Porsche Tennis Grand Prix quarterfinal, in a match that was long and steady, mostly going with serve, where nuances decided the advantageous player.

Sharapova and Stosur were both solid in the first set, Stosur a bit more, and despite wasting two break opportunities, one of which was a set point at 5-4, in the tiebreak Stosur completed the task and took the first set.

The second set continued to go with serve until 3-3 and finally in the 19th game of the match Stosur stopped the pattern and broke Sharapova. However, that proved not to be the turning point, as the always-determined Sharapova complicated the matters and the tournament organizer's schedule plans. The fifth-seeded Stosur was serving for the match at 5-4, but Sharapova broke to level 5-5 and then we had another tiebreak in which the second-seeded Russian came out as a winner, considerably prolonging the match. Read more »

Less than two weeks after preventing Caroline Wozniacki from winning her third straight home tournament title in Copenhagen, German Angelique Kerber defeated the Dane again, this time in the second round of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart.

Last year's Stuttgart runner-up Wozniacki, seeded sixth this time, went out in just 63 minutes, 6-1 6-2. Kerber was so solid that she didn't even face a single break point and won 92% on her first serve. Wozniacki, on the other hand, has some pretty embarrassing stats, like the 14% of second serve points won and just 8% of first serve return points won.

Kerber's opponent in the quarterfinals will be Petra Kvitova, who defeated Francesca Schiavone 6-2 6-2. Other quarterfinal pairs: Victoria Azarenka vs. Mona Barthel, Maria Sharapova vs. Samantha Stosur, Agnieszka Radwanska vs. Li Na. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Because of a back injury, world No.12 Andrea Petkovic had been away from the competition from Sydney in the beginning of January to the last weekend's Fed Cup tie against Australia, which is full three months. And now playing only her second match in a WTA event since the comeback, the German suffered an ankle injury and retired in the second set against Victoria Azarenka.

The top-seeded Azarenka won the first set 6-2. With the score tied at 4-4 in the second set Petkovic twisted her right ankle and it swelled up immediately. Tomorrow's tests will show how great the damage is.

This Petkovic's quote assures me that she's staying positive:

It is definitely unlucky, but I will be back again.

After the three-month layoff Petkovic lost to Samantha Stosur 6-4 6-1 in the Fed Cup, then in the first round of Stuttgart she defeated Kristina Barrois 6-1 6-4, and now she's on the sidelines again. Hopefully the injury is not too serious! (photo: sr_cranks)

The 2008 Porsche Tennis Grand Prix champion Jelena Jankovic started her first round encounter with Caroline Wozniacki well, earning a 3-1 lead and even having chances to make it bigger, but the sixth-seeded Dane then went on a roll, won five straight games to take the first set 6-3. In the ninth game Jankovic had three break opportunities, but Wozniacki was not looking back and continued the momentum in the second set by breaking Jankovic's serve right away. The disappointment then struck, as Jankovic retired after 55 minutes of play.

Serbia lost another representative this Wednesday in Stuttgart, when Ana Ivanovic fell to wildcard Mona Barthel 7-5 7-6(4).

Another match was cut short by injury today – second seed Maria Sharapova advanced when Alize Cornet called it a day at 6-3 1-0 because of a right shoulder injury in their second round match. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)