The wedding bug has hit the WTA. Our newly-launched WTA Players and their Boyfriends/Husbands series is getting more updates than expected. Karolina Sprem wasn't the only women's tennis player saying "yes" over the weekend. On Saturday, July 14, Spain's 29-year-old Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez married her boyfriend Juan Domingo. Lots of thanks to the Twitter fan account VamosMJMS! that provided me with her husband's name and the wedding photos. Read more »

Just days after our reader Anastasia suggested a WTA Players and their Boyfriends/Husbands series, we already have a good reason to launch it - two years into their relationship, women's tennis player Karolina Sprem and ATP star Marcos Baghdatis decided to tie the knot this weekend in the bride's native Croatia. Read more »

Alize Cornet, former world No.11 and current No.73, won the Nurnberger Gastein Ladies without dropping a set all week, even though her straight-set victory in the final against Yanina Wickmayer was a close affair, as the seventh-seeded Cornet was serving at 4-5 0-15 in the first set and 5-6 15-30 in the second.

Before beating the second-seeded Wickmayer, Cornet defeated Edina Gallovits Hall in the first round, then Sacha Jones, Estrella Cabeza Candela, and third seed Ksenia Pervak in the semis.

Cornet is ecstatic to have won her second WTA title and her first since Budapest 2008 at her favorite tournament where she feels at home.

Top seed in singles at the Bad Gastein was Julia Goerges and she fell in the first round already. However, the German made up for the loss by winning her fourth doubles title and her first teamed up with best friend Jill Craybas. In the final they defeated No.1 seeds Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Petra Martic, 6-7(4) 6-4 11-9. (via WTA Tour, photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Remember the recent celebration of Women's Tennis Blog's fifth birthday and the prize of a necklace with a crystal tennis ball pendant made by the crafty hands of Emily Austin? The prize is now adorning the neck of the lucky contest winner Lily Li, but I fell in love with the necklace so much that I had to have one for myself. I asked Emily if she would be so kind as to make one for me, and she really gladly agreed, offering me the biggest pendant there is!

Emily disposes with more than 100 Swarovski colors and I found fuschia absolutely adorable. The necklace survived shipping all the way from Arizona to Serbia and pleasently surprised me last Saturday evening in my mailbox. When I opened the gift, the beauty of it stunned me, really, the necklace is beyond wonderful and you can see that Emily puts a lot of love and patience in her work.

The pendant is much bigger than it seems in the images on Emily's website, and my photos here are giving it more justice (thanks to my talented photographer friend Marija Veljkovic!). The detailing of the entire piece is astonishing. The ball is super shiny with nice white beading imitating the white cloth of a tennis ball. The loop is also glammed up, with shiny crystals, adding another beautiful touch to the item as a whole.

The silver necklace is of excellent quality, it greatly exceeded my expectations. It looks expensive and the connector has a wonderful little heart as a detail, with engraved name of the artist "Emily Austin".

If you're looking for buying jewelry as a present or for yourself, I assure you that you won't regret if you order from Emily, a skillful woman hidden in Scottsdale, Arizona. She will make the sparkly item of jewelry based on your color, style and size of choice. You can choose between tennis ball, golf, football, heart or star pendants, wedding jewelry, earrings, bracelets, or whatever you wish. Just browse through Emily's website to see the main things that are on offer, but you can also contact her via  email or telephone and I'm sure she would be glad to answer your specific need.

Remember the Tennis Score Tracker iPhone app that I presented three months ago, which helps tennis players, coaches, referees and spectators log tennis scores via their mobile phones? The guys making the app worked hard in the meantime making updates, as well as adding team rosters so that teams of players can be managed for tournaments. Their press release below talks about the update.

Tennis Score Tracker is updated to include teams, events, and team rosters. You can now add multiple teams, followed by multiple events for each team, as well as an event roster based on team members. Event rosters can be copied from previous events for easy management. The screen capture shows the new team roster view with matches won in green, matches lost in red, and matches suspended for later play in yellow.

Keeping score in tennis is very simple using this app. In just a few taps the match timer starts and scoring begins. If playing a tennis match users can set the score mode to game-by-game so that the score is updated during changeovers. If observing a tennis match users can set the score mode to point-by-point, scoring matches in the standard way. Scores can be sent via email or text message, or posted to Facebook. Matches can be suspended for later play if needed. A player roster, with details such as notes and player ratings, integrates with your existing contacts as an option.

Players can be added to any line with duplicates in the event that a player plays more than one match. Team captains may be specified by selecting the hat. Team substitutes may be specified by selecting the dual player icon. In the image on the right you can see that Christopher is selected as a captain, and Patricia is selected as a substitute. Event results can be shared via email.

Locations of tennis matches can be displayed in a map view so that over time users can see where matches were played, and to view previous matches based on location. Locations are displayed during match play based on location name, coordinates as latitude and longitude, or coordinates as degrees, minutes, and seconds, selectable by the user.

Device Requirements:

Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad
Requires iOS 4.2 or later
4.8 Mb
Languages Supported:

English, French, Japanese, Spanish, Simplified Chinese

Visit the official page of the application for more details or, if you have any questions, feel free to use the comments section below.

Twenty-two-year old Vesna Dolonts has received Serbian citizenship and will now represent Serbia in her tennis career. The Muscovite used to represent Russia. Her mother Ekaterina is Russian, while her father Rastko is Serbian. As I can see in her WTA profile, Dolonts speaks only Russian and English, not Serbian.

Dolonts is currently ranked 169th, which makes her the fourth-ranked Serbian after Ana Ivanovic, Jelena Jankovic and Bojana Jovanovski. Her highest world ranking was No.86, reached in July 2011, while her biggest victory to date is the second round upset of 15th seed and world No.17 Marion Bartoli at the 2011 Australian Open.

Before getting married to Arsen Dolonts in October 2010, Vesna played under the surname Manasieva.

This article is especially dedicated to reader Dusan who wanted me to share this story!

Update: Vesna also changed her last name's English spelling from Dolonts to Dolonc! (source: RIA Novosti, photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Dear readers,

Professional tennis coach Florian Meier from OnlineTennisInstruction.com is back to give you another great video tip. This one is a forehand tip. Florian discusses the windshield wiper forehand, which is a very common term in tennis these days. Many recreational players make mistakes in trying to copy this so-called windshield wiper motion from the professional players.

If you enjoy the video and want to see more of Florian’s free video tips go ahead and click on the image below the video where you can sign up for his free newsletter.

Florian's video tips are meant to be actionable and effective in a short period of time and he believes that:

Tennis video instruction is helping tennis players all over the world now get a better idea of what they need to do in order to improve and he is excited to be a part of it.

FOREHAND TIP: THE WINDSHIELD WIPER FOREHAND

If you sign up you will receive Florian's Top 5 video tips straight to your inbox. In the Top 5 video series all four areas of the game are covered. There are tips for:

- Improving your groundstrokes and missing less in the net,
– Developing a better service motion,
– Playing smarter and hitting to the right targets,
– Developing more efficient footwork,
– Improving your mental game.

Florian explains:

I spent the past 10 years of my life coaching and researching how tennis players can improve and what I found is that most players get stuck at a certain level and often remain there for the rest of their tennis career. Usually they lack the right information to take their game to the next level and my goal with OnlineTennisInstruction.com is to close that gap.

OnlineTennisInstruction.com is a website focused on helping tennis players improve their game. Florian also writes about current events in pro tennis on his blog. Visit his website to get more free tennis tips.

Dear readers,

Professional tennis coach Florian Meier from OnlineTennisInstruction.com is back to give you another great video tip.

This tip is on the slice backhand and it can probably help a lot of you improve your slice. Florian says that most players float the slice too much whereas the best players hit it so that it really skids through the court. If you enjoy the video and want to see more of Florian’s free video tips go ahead and click on the image below the video where you can sign up for his newsletter.

Florian's video tips are meant to be actionable and effective in a short period of time and he believes that:

Tennis video instruction is helping tennis players all over the world now get a better idea of what they need to do in order to improve and I am excited to be a part of it.

SLICE BACKHAND TIP

If you sign up you will receive Florian's Top 5 video tips straight to your inbox. In the Top 5 video series all four areas of the game are covered. There are tips for:

- Improving your groundstrokes and missing less in the net,
- Developing a better service motion,
- Playing smarter and hitting to the right targets,
- Developing more efficient footwork,
- Improving your mental game.

Florian explains:

I spent the past 10 years of my life coaching and researching how tennis players can improve and what I found is that most players get stuck at a certain level and often remain there for the rest of their tennis career. Usually they lack the right information to take their game to the next level and my goal with OnlineTennisInstruction.com is to close that gap.

OnlineTennisInstruction.com is a website focused on helping tennis players improve their game. Florian also writes about current events in pro tennis on his blog. Visit his website to get more video tennis tips.