Thanks to Marine of Tennis Notebook I'm learning that Adidas by Stella McCartney is dropping the idea of being represented exclusively by one player. The brand was first promoted by Russian beauty Maria Kirilenko, before she got replaced late in 2009 by more consistent and subsequent world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki. Now, after Wozniacki's three-year exclusivity with Stella, new faces are joining the story: Laura Robson and Andrea Petkovic. Read more »

Last year our great contributor John Bolan merged his courage and talent for tennis predictions and shared with us as early as in January how he thought the season-ending WTA Top 10 would look like. And that wasn't all. He asked you to join him in predictions and James, the reader who turned out to be the best predictor, was awarded an autograph of a WTA star.

John Bolan receiving autograph of Victoria Azarenka

As we all enjoyed the little project, we decided to repeat it this year. John has made his 2013 predictions (I have to say that he sent me the finished article way before New Year's Eve and before the WTA action started, but I was a bit slow in putting it up together!), and you are more than welcome to comment on John's picks, to share your own Top 10 selection in the comments below this article and then we get to wait for the season to finish to see how we all fared. The best predictor will win an autograph of a Top 10 WTA player, so there's even an incentive to take some time and employ your foretelling skills! Now I'm giving the word to John!

It isn't easy to predict the Top 10 players for 2013 this early, but these are my choices for the end of 2013:

1. Maria Sharapova
2. Victoria Azarenka
3. Agnieszka Radwanska
4. Serena Williams
5. Li Na
6. Caroline Wozniacki
7. Samantha Stosur
8. Petra Kvitova
9. Sara Errani
10. Angelique Kerber

I have tried my best to keep personal preferences out of my thoughts while choosing these players. Instead, I checked out the most recent head-to-head matches, the number of tournaments played the past two years and injury reports. Injuries always have a big effect on the outcome of the Top 10. Vera Zvonareva and Andrea Petkovic are not included because they remain out of action and will not play in Australia this year. Read more »

It’s somewhat strange to see a Grand Slam champion in qualifying rounds of a WTA event, but that’s exactly what US Open and Roland Garros winner Svetlana Kuznetsova had to go through to earn her place in the Apia International Sydney main draw. However, getting some additional match play turned out to be beneficial. In the first round, the Russian, who had spent six months recovering from a knee injury, beat Julia Goerges 3-6 6-3 6-3 and followed it up with an upset of former world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki. The match against the seventh-seeded Wozniacki was played in sweltering heat and lasted almost four hours, 7-6(4) 1-6 6-2. Here’s how Kuznetsova, who finished last season as early as at Wimbledon, commented on her renewed self:

Before the break I was losing to Goerges, I was losing to Wozniacki, every time I was up and had chances and could never close those matches. Now, after the break, I just feel fresh, I feel happy, I feel balanced on the court. I feel I'm doing the right things when I have to do them.

Read more »

Australian No.1 Samantha Stosur has always struggled with the pressure of high expectations on home soil and this year she had an additional burden in the form of insufficient preparations due to a minor ankle surgery a month and a half ago. Even though Stosur said that she didn't feel as huge a frustration or weight on her shoulders as last year, two first-round losses to kick off the 2013 season, no matter how close they were, must be hurting.

After falling to Sofia Arvidsson 7-6(4) 7-5 in the first round of the Brisbane International, in Monday's night match at the Apia International Sydney, Stosur bowed out to Zheng Jie 6-3 6-7(7) 6-4 in round one. Despite another defeat, Stosur is glad for winning a set and climbing up a break in the third set. In seven years, Stosur has managed to win just two matches at the Sydney tournament, while in Brisbane she's never been past the second round in four tries.

The world No.9 Stosur is now heading to Melbourne and the Australian Open which starts next Monday. She has never done better than the fourth round at the Australian Open and with such poor 2013 lead-up to the Grand Slam, her prospects look quite grim. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

After falling in the second round of the Brisbane International, Petra Kvitova won just two games against Dominika Cibulkova in the first round of the Apia International Sydney, 6-1 6-1. Cibulkova is always a threat and she is a deserving world No.15, but these two early losses of the eighth-ranked Kvitova do put a big question mark above her fans' heads. In the defeat to Cibulkova, Kvitova recorded 35 unforced errors. After the match, when asked what went wrong, Kvitova said that everything went wrong and that she played very badly.

Did Kvitova enter the slump zone or is this just a phase she'll get out of in time? Last year she played the Sydney semifinals and followed up with a semifinal at the Australian Open.

Caroline Wozniacki also opened the season with a shock loss, to Ksenia Pervak in the first round of Brisbane, but in Sydney she recorded a comfortable 6-2 6-1 victory over Urszula Radwanska in the opening round. The freshly-engaged Maria Kirilenko is also through, with a 7-5 6-2 win over Olivia Rogowska. (via Women Who Serve and WTA Tour, photo: © Neal Trousdale)