Twenty-eight-year-old Marion Bartoli made a tough decision to break free from her father Walter's 22-year-long tennis guidance, and despite talks that Amelie Mauresmo would be her new coach, Jana Novotna was hired ahead of Indian Wells and will work with the world No.11 full time. After reaching the Indian Wells quarterfinals with a 6-4 6-3 victory over Svetlana Kuznetsova, Bartoli ran to Novotna for a hug. Bartoli's next opponent is sixth seed Sara Errani.

Bartoli met Novotna, who happens to share her birthday of October 2nd, in Doha and is happy to be coached by a woman, believing that a woman champion can understand her best. The 44-year-old Novotna won one Grand Slam in singles in her career and it was at Wimbledon, where Bartoli played her sole Grand Slam final in 2007. (source: Tennis.com, photo via MungoNGus)

Jelena Jankovic debuted a so called Fila Heritage Carwash dress this week at Indian Wells, where she lost to Svetlana Kuznetsova in the second round, despite bageling the Russian in the first set. Final score was 0-6 6-2 7-5.

The highlight of the dress is what looks like a pleated bottom but is actually a bunch of straps that sway and bounce as you play. Jelena wore a blue version of the dress and over it a new Heritage sweater. The dress also comes in white and costs $90, while the sweater is $80.

Kuznetsova, who switched from wearing Fila to Qiaodan in the beginning of this year, had a slight wardrobe issue during the encounter and had to take off her tight leggings in order to be able to move more freely. (source: Tennis Identity)

This is the third post in Omair's series comparing the games of WTA Top 3 to their respective Top 3 ATP colleagues. After the introductory article, Omair talked about "Who would win if Serena faced Djokovic, Azarenka played Federer and Sharapova encountered Murray?" and now he is digging into the actual stats to compare them further.

It is always tough when you have to compare the consistency of players, there are a lot of factors that must be taken into account. I tried to cover some factors and see how the two players respond in each of the chosen categories. I would love to hear from you people and see if we can add further categories to enhance the analysis and make it more credible.

The factors that I have taken into account are as follows:

• WIN-LOSS RECORD – Gives an idea of how many matches the player actually played and how many matches he/she won or lost. This will also be important in that we will see if a player won more matches than the other despite playing fewer tournaments.
• PERCENTAGE OF MATCHES WON – Players have played different number of tournaments, hence just comparing the number of matches won or lost would not make sense. A more appropriate indicator for comparison will be the percentage of matches won or lost. The greater the percentage, the more consistent the player is, and vice versa.
• PERCENTAGE OF TITLES WON – I have mentioned the number of titles won in the summary, but more appropriate would be the percentage of titles won, since each player played different number of tournaments, hence percentage will give us a better idea of which player did well. The greater the percentage, the more consistent the player is, and vice versa. Read more »

Past week featured three $235,000 WTA events and we got two first-time titlists and one player who defended her title.

At the WTA Brasil Tennis Cup in Florianopolis, world No.75 Monica Niculescu survived a triple match point in the first round against Anabel Medina Garrigues and another marathon, 6-2 4-6 6-4, in the final against Olga Puchkova, who had taken out top seed Venus Williams in the semis, to win her first title in her third final, after two finals in Luxembourg in the last two years.

At the BMW Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur, Czech Karolina Pliskova, who had never been past the quarterfinals, after four straight-set victories battled back from a set down in the final to beat Bethanie Mattek Sands, who had taken out second seed and defending champion Hsieh Su-Wei and No.3 seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Final score: 1-6 7-5 6-3. Pliskova is now in the Top 100 for the first time.

At the Abierto Mexicano TELCEL in Acapulco, defending champion and top seed Sara Errani won the first eight games of the match and fought through the next eight to beat second seed Carla Suarez Navarro 6-0 6-4. The win is the Italian’s 18th this year and puts her on the WTA pedestal for the most wins this season, ahead of Agnieszka Radwanska who has 17. (photos: © Neal Trousdale)

Omair is continuing his series of comparing Top 3 WTA players to the ATP Top 3. Before digging into the actual numbers to contrast the two tours, Omair is comparing the general sporting characteristics of men and women and the styles of WTA No.1, No.2 and No.3 players to their respective ATP colleagues.

I hope that you people enjoyed the introductory article. There are a few things that I should have mentioned then, but better late than never. Please note that the views expressed here are mine and it is just how I see things, it is not to offend anyone, be it player or his/her fan.

Firstly, men’s tennis and women’s tennis are completely different for a lot of reasons. The major reason is probably the physique and build of sexes. We can argue into it by saying that there are a lot of female players who have more power than males, however, a biologist or doctor would be able to explain it more appropriately. Overall, for one reason or another, the games are different, but that does not mean that one is better than the other. Difference is the spice of life, and it is difference that makes things interesting.

A reader pointed out that women’s tour is more elegant, delicate as compared to men. I, for one, would love to see an encounter of Serena Williams and Roger Federer, not to determine who is better, just to see how they match up with each other. However, as I said in the first article, more appropriate matches would be Serena Williams vs. Novak Djokovic, Victoria Azarenka vs. Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova vs. Andy Murray. Can you imagine Serena Williams acing Novak Djokovic, Victoria Azarenka outhitting Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova outlasting Andy Murray? Have you ever wondered or have you ever wanted to see these players challenging each other? I have imagined it quite a few times and if the matches were to happen, here are the outcomes I would expect.

SERENA WILLIAMS VS. NOVAK DJOKOVIC

In the match-up of Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic, I am not too sure if Novak Djokovic would come out on top handily. He might if Serena would have one of those rough days. It would be more of a coin toss. This would perhaps be the most interesting of all the match-ups considering that both players can defend well, can hit through their opponents and return well. It would definitely be a match worth watching. In a best-of-three, I would go with Serena, although Djokovic would have an equal chance of taking it, but I stick with Serena. Read more »