As a form of tribute to the Williams sisters' return to tennis, I decided to share this beautiful old story of the Williams family and update Women's Tennis Blog's section dedicated to players when they were kids.

The short film shows the beginnings of Venus' and Serena's careers, the LA ghetto neighborhood they grew up in, their father Richard's clear vision, and even a "respected author" who said "demographically tennis is still perceived as a white upper-class sport, I don't think there are people out there dying to give millions of dollars to a ten-year-old black girl". You also get to see a 13-year-old Venus and a year younger Serena talking, laughing and playing tennis.

More childhood photos of Serena and Venus are available here, while here you can see little Venus with her enthusiastic father on the tennis court. Read more »

German world No.100 Sabine Lisicki defeated Slovakia's Daniela Hantuchova in a rain-delayed final of the AEGON Classic in Birmingham and collected her second WTA title.

En route to the Birmingham trophy, the unseeded Lisicki defeated Kimiko Date-Krumm (62) in the first round, Kirsten Flipkens (111) in the second, Tamira Paszek (80) in the third, Magdalena Rybarikova (69) in the quarters, Peng Shuai (20) in the semis and finally Daniela Hantuchova (28). As you can see, only one Lisicki's opponent was ranked lower than her. However, it is not really surprising that Lisicki managed to defeat them, as she was ranked No.22 in 2009, prior to her health problems. Read more »

Last year the Copenhagen e-Boks Sony Ericsson Open was organized for the first time and Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki delighted her home fans by going all the way to the title. This week, at the second edition of the tournament, the now top-ranked Wozniacki repeated the feat by beating Lucie Safarova 6-1 6-4 in the final of this hard-court event placed in-between the clay and grass tennis seasons.

The Williams sisters are stealing the attention with their comebacks, while Wozniacki is playing and winning. The Dane didn't drop a set throughout the tournament and after victories over Irina Falconi, Angelique Kerber, Alberta Brianti and Mona Barthel, she avenged her loss to Safarova from their only previous meeting in Stuttgart 2010, collected her fifth WTA title of the season (Dubai, Indian Wells, Charleston, Brussels, and now Copenhagen) and earned $37,000 and 280 points.

Meanwhile, the AEGON Classic tournament in Birmingham couldn’t come to a close according to the schedule as the Daniela Hantuchova vs. Sabine Lisicki final has been postponed due to rain. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Serena and Venus Williams are set to play the AEGON International in Eastbourne, and even though some fans are still finding it hard to believe the sisters will indeed show up, it is highly likely that their comeback is for real. To celebrate the return of the biggest names, the WTA Tour has even made a short video of the Williamses practicing ahead of their first competitive tournament in a long time – Serena hasn’t played since last year’s Wimbledon, which is practically a year, and Venus hasn’t played since January’s Australian Open (while even before that, after Roland Garros 2010 she played only Wimbledon and the US Open). Read more »

Ana Ivanovic needed less than three hours to win three matches and advance to the semifinals on the grass of the AEGON Classic in Birmingham.

After a first round bye Ivanovic defeated world No.118 Anna Tatishvili 6-1 6-0 in the second round in 44 minutes, in the third round world No.45 Rebecca Marino was beaten 6-3 6-2 in 59 minutes and today in the quarterfinals Ivanovic's quick progress continued with a 6-3 6-4 win over the 94th-ranked Mirjana Lucic, also in just seconds less than an hour. Ok, now, does she even need a coach?

The next obstacle of the second-seeded Serb will be pretty serious. It will be Slovakia's Daniela Hantuchova who also reached the semifinals without losing a set and has won 11 of her last 14 matches, including the recent 6-1 6-3 victory over world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki at the French Open. (photo courtesy of Tony)

Men's tennis star Andy Roddick says that Serena Williams' return will bring a much-needed strength to the women's game and he's welcoming the comeback of his fellow American.

Roddick thinks that women’s tennis has not been in good situation without Serena:

I mean, I think, no disrespect to any of the women that are playing right now, but I think women's tennis needs that dominating figure.

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Nike hired famed photographer Annie Leibovitz to shoot ads for their "Make Yourself" campaign and tennis players Li Na and Maria Sharapova are among the seven women’s athletes featured. Read more »

China's Li Na has been sponsored by Nike and the sportswear company was quick to celebrate the Roland Garros victory of their tennis partner. Nike featured Li's photo in their Paris store and organized an event with the Asia's first Grand Slam singles champion giving autographs, posing for the pictures with fans and talking to the press.

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