Our stats analyst Omair is already famous for his statistical articles and now he's inspired Ludolf, another reader of Women's Tennis Blog and fan of tennis numbers, to contribute his take on the WTA rankings, i.e. he compared the actual rankings with the performance of players at the biggest events – Grand Slams and WTA Championships. Enjoy!

The WTA ranking does not rank properly the strength of players in the sense of the ability to win a match or a tournament. The main reason is that it is cumulative and therefore underestimates players without a sufficient number of tournaments. We need to compute an average to avoid this. Moreover, the WTA ranking considers tournaments with weights not depending on the quality of players on them.

To achive the above-mentioned goal it seems to be more appropriate to take the average result from majors and the WTA Championships, the tournaments where the best players are almost always present. By the result of a player we mean the number of her losses (including the rounds which she did not achieve), i.e. 0 for the winner, 1 for the defeated finalist, 2 for defeated semifinalists, and so on. The results for the last 52 weeks are presented in the table, completed by the WTA ranking (after the Australian Open) for comparison. (FO: French Open, W: Wimbledon, USO: US Open, WTA: WTA Championships, AO: Australian Open)

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A year ago I interviewed Bethanie Mattek Sands about her favorite tennis outfit, her tattoos, her best friends on the WTA Tour, etc. This fall I had an opportunity to interview the American again and I asked her about her 2011 season, her leisure activities and of course her opinion on the on-court WTA fashion.

MARIJA: What will you remember the 2011 season for?

BETHANIE MATTEK SANDS: Even though my 2011 season ended early due to injury I was able to reach a career high ranking and still get some of my best wins to date. The win at Hopman Cup with my partner John Isner was an amazing start to my season and I really felt I was able to gain some momentum and confidence. Off the court I have to say the Wimbledon Player Party will always be memorable as I got to rock a custom Alex Noble dress on the red carpet.

MARIJA: How is your shoulder injury now? Will you be perfectly healthy for the start of the new season and the Hopman Cup?

BETHANIE MATTEK SANDS: I'm happy to say my shoulder has come along way from where it was. I've been able to practice the last couple weeks but the time off and rehab I was able to take really helped it heal up. I'm excited to be going back to Perth for Hopman Cup at the end of December. If it wasn't such a far flight I would be "down under" more often!

MARIJA: What was your favorite activity you had more time for during the rehabilitation process? I read that you enjoyed cooking? Read more »

Petra Kvitova is the hottest player of the moment with her WTA Championships title and the year can also be considered hers, as she won Wimbledon as one of her six titles in 2011. The Czech is now enjoying her career-high ranking of number two and the next season is expected to be more than bright for this 21-year-old. Now let's see how little Kvitova was handling the tennis racquet 17 years ago.

Petr, thank you for telling me about the video! Read more »

Petra Kvitova will take a few days of rest following her Wimbledon title run.  The 21-year-old Czech was playing Wimbledon on painkillers and now she's decided to skip next week's NURNBERGER Gastein Ladies in Austria to fully recover.

Kvitova was supposed to be top seed at the $220,000 event and Julia Goerges will now take that place.

The video I included in this article instead of a photo is Kvitova's photo shoot with her Wimbledon trophy and men's singles champion Novak Djokovic. Kvitova attracted a lot of positive attention with her blue gown at the Wimbledon Champions Ball.

I was inspired to do this post when I saw that many news sources, including The Telegraph and Guardian, claimed this guy was Petra Kvitova's father. He may have been the most noticeable face in Kvitova's box, but he is not the 2011 Wimbledon champion's father. I found that the man is Jaroslav Navratil, a former professional tennis player from Czechoslovakia.

Here are photos of Kvitova's father Jiri Kvita, who introduced Kvitova to tennis.

Jiri is a teacher. Read more »

Don't be surprised when you visit the WTA Tour rankings page and don't see Serena Williams there. She's on page 2 now!

Having failed to defend her Wimbledon title, falling in the fourth round to Marion Bartoli, Serena Williams dropped from No.25 to No.175! No doubt she can just as quickly climb back, but still, what a slump! It's Serena's lowest ranking since 1997!

Serena's sister Venus suffered a much milder fall. Now she is No.34, and prior to Wimbledon she was No.30.

Petra Kvitova, the 2011 Wimbledon champion, has risen from No.8 to No.7, while Caroline Wozniacki, who lost in the fourth round along with Serena and Venus, remains No.1.

Reminder: Remember when Kim Clijsters won the US Open and ended by being ranked lower afterwards? (photo: Tidalist)

Three WTA players from the Czech Republic won Wimbledon title over the weekend: Petra Kvitova won in women's singles, Kveta Peschke won women’s doubles title partnered with Slovenia’s Katarina Srebotnik and Iveta Benesova won mixed doubles with Austria’s Jurgen Melzer.

The 21-year-old Kvitova delighted women's tennis with her confident and solid performance against Maria Sharapova in the women's singles final. No screams, big stage or the credentials of her opponent could shake Kvitova's game, she was determined and stable in her 6-3 6-4 win over the three-time Grand Slam champion. As for the rankings, Kvitova has risen from No.8 to No.7.

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Nike has had a lot of reason to celebrate as we had an all-Nike semifinals at Wimbledon 2011 with Petra Kvitova, Maria Sharapova, Sabine Lisicki and Victoria Azarenka. When the world No.8 Kvitova  lifted the greatest tennis trophy on Saturday, Nike already had a tribute to the Czech prepared. When Li Na won Roland Garros last month, Nike also had everything ready for the party.

The 21-year-old Kvitova was also given a tribute by her racquet sponsor, Wilson.

And here are Kvitova's tributes to:

• modesty: "I don't want to change, I just want to be like everyone else, I'm nothing special."
• her game: "Some special tactics, it wasn't."
• stability: "I don't care about the noise. When I play I don't think about it. I just play my game. Azarenka was also noisy and I don't care."

(via Down the Line, quotes via Women Who Serve)

Petra Kvitova, 21, may have played her first Grand Slam final, and not only that, she played against former world No.1 and 2004 champion Maria Sharapova, but apart from the shaky serve in the opening game, Kvitova showed no signs of nervousness and went all the way to the biggest tennis trophy with a 6-3 6-4 win. The most powerful sign of Kvitova's mental strength, something very welcome in women's tennis, was the final game of the match which Kvitova quickly won with great serves without losing a point.

The weakest link in Sharapova's game was her serve, and here's one illustration: in the first set the Russian three-time Grand Slam champion won just 14% of points on her second serve. I often had a feeling that Sharapova was afraid to serve. After the coin toss she chose Kvitova to start the match. Also, the crucial sixth game of the first set Sharapova lost with a double fault and Kvitova earned a 4-2 lead. Sharapova's mental toughness got its time to shine when she served an ace on Kvitova's set point in the first set, but overall in the match, the eighth-ranked Kvitova was much more solid and not even the never-give-up attitude could save Sharapova. The first seven games of the second set featured five breaks of serve, and that fifth one was earned by Kvitova, who soon worked her way to the Wimbledon title.

Kvitova, who cracked the Top 10 this year, has won her fourth title of the season, after Brisbane, Paris and Madrid. (photo via Wimbledon)

I am always glad to get back in touch with the very first company who approached and supported Women's Tennis Blog as early as 2007 - Own the Zone. They have released a fun instructional video on how to volley and I thought it would be nice to share it. Press release follows.

Coach Dan Aronovic released his second free tennis lesson video on YouTube this week just in time for Wimbledon. His newest video, called the Tennis Volley with Salsa, is a short, funny and entertaining lesson on how to play the net in tennis. It will be followed by a 30-minute tennis lesson for download in the coming week, which provides drills, tactics and winning points at the net. This strategic tennis lesson will require a small fee of $9.95 for download. The Tennis Volley video can be downloaded from www.otzsports.com.

"The volley has become a 'lost art' in tennis, with most pro players slamming the ball from the backcourt", Coach Dan said. "But as Wimbledon shows us, more players will come to net because of the low bounce on grass. My volley instruction is modeled on the classic volleys of players like Billie Jean King, Stan Smith, Margaret Court and John Newcombe. I wanted to pass on this lost art of the volley to the current generation." Read more »