The Czech Republic made a strong start to their Fed Cup title defense with two comfortable victories over Serbia, whose chances for maiden Fed Cup crown look very slim.

Lucie Safarova and Ana Ivanovic took the court first. The match was opened by Ivanovic holding her serve after fending off a break point, but that was as much of a lead the Serb had in the match, as Safarova went up a break in the third game, and even though Ivanovic leveled to 2-2, another break in the seventh game sealed the Serb's fate. Safarova continued her solid game in the second set and beat Ivanovic, who was coming back from a hip injury sustained in Moscow, 6-4 6-3 for the fourth straight time. Read more »

Top three seeds were in action on Day 2 of the Tournament of Champions in Sofia and all the three won their round-robin matches.

Seed No.1 Caroline Wozniacki yesterday eased past Hsieh Su-Wei and today she had another straightforward victory, 6-3 6-1 against Roberta Vinci, to whom she lost last year at the Rogers Cup 6-4 7-5, despite having multiple set points in the second set. At the the 2011 Rogers Cup Wozniacki was not only defending her title, at the time she was ranked No.1.

The world No.11 Dane now has a chance to get back in the Top 10. To achieve that she needs to either win the Tournament of Champions title or reach the final undefeated. Tomorrow Wozniacki plays her last round-robin match in the Serdika Group, against Daniela Hantuchova, who lost to Roberta Vinci yesterday.

In the Sredets Group, seed No.2 Nadia Petrova and seed No.3 Maria Kirilenko, doubles partners who have just this weekend clinched the huge WTA Championships title, both won their singles matches in Sofia, defeating Zheng Jie 6-3 6-3 and home darling Tsvetana Pironkova 6-1 6-4 respectively, and on Thursday they will face each other in the opening match of the day.

Roberta Vinci vs. Hsieh Su-Wei is the third and last match on the Day 3 schedule. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

On October 25th in Berlin, at the European launch of the new HyperChrome collection, Swiss luxury watch maker Rado named Julia Goerges their latest brand ambassador. The 18th-ranked German joined ATP player Andy Murrey as part of the Rado family.

Rado differs from the traditional Swiss watch makers in that it leans towards innovative uses of high-tech materials in distinct design. – Rado's official Facebook page

To make the event exciting, Goerges played tennis in the dark under UV light with neon equipment, joined CEO Matthias Breschan in presenting the new collection, met special guests and signed autographs.

If you want to wear the same watch as Goerges, you should get yourself the white automatic high-tech ceramic Rado HyperChrome. (source: Rado via The Slice)

The Qatar Airways Tournament of Champions Sofia is, in my opinion, the anti-climax of the women's tennis season, as the finale for the WTA's International Series following the much more prestigious WTA Championships, and what makes it even more odd is that the closing matches will coincide with the Fed Cup World Group final. To make things worse, Ana Ivanovic cannot defend her title in Sofia because she is playing for her country of Serbia in the Fed Cup against the Czech Republic. But let's accept the situation we have and see what happened on Day one of the Tournament of Champions, which has relocated from Bali to Sofia for the first time this year.

Top seed Caroline Wozniacki cruised to a 6-2 6-2 victory over Hsieh Su-Wei, converting all five of her break opportunities. Wozniacki is also in action tomorrow, in the third match of the day, and her Serdika Group opponent is Roberta Vinci, who has actually won their one and only previous career meeting. Just like Wozniacki, Vinci needed just over an hour to see off her opponent, Daniela Hantuchova, 6-1 6-2.

Home star Tsvetana Pironkova is yet to win a WTA title and she entered the tournament by virtue of a wildcard, but she justified the chance she has been given by winning a 2-6 6-4 7-6(4) marathon against Zheng Jie, to whom she had lost on both the previous occasions. The Bulgarian is in the Sredets Group and after the most emotional win of her career, which came after a 6-2 4-4 deficit, she will face Maria Kirilenko, also a wildcard, in the second match on Wednesday. Tomorrow's action will open the match between Zheng Jie and Nadia Petrova. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Less than 24 hours after finishing runner-up at the WTA Championships in Istanbul, Maria Sharapova has not only glamorously arrived to Prague on Monday, she went sightseeing with her best friend, taking some jumping photos in front of the Dancing House, attended a press conference, had some fun with fellow tennis players and Czech hosts Petra Kvitova and Lucie Safarova and then proceeded to play an exhibition match against them. Read more »

It doesn't matter how important a tournament, a match or an opponent is, Serena Williams is like a tornado quickly destroying everything that comes her way. In today's WTA Championships final against Maria Sharapova, the American steadily marched to her third title at the year-ending tournament, without facing either a break point or a deuce in her service games.

En route to the title match, Serena was perfect 3-0 in round-robin action, without even losing a set against world No.1 Victoria Azarenka, Li Na and Angelique Kerber, in the semifinals she also stormed to a straight-set win against Agnieszka Radwanska, only to continue the momentum in the last match of the tournament by routinely taking Sharapova's serve in the fifth game of the first set and the first and ninth games of the second set for a 6-4 6-3 victory.

The second-ranked Sharapova was hanging in there and didn't play bad, but Serena is simply on a pedestal now and the maximum one can do is not to melt away against her. A winner at the speed of 135 km/h and a service game won in just one minute and 21 seconds are just two indicators of Serena's power.

Serena has now won 12 straight matches against world No.1s and No.2s and holds an impressive 58-4 win-loss record this season which includes titles in Charleston, Madrid, Wimbledon, Stanford, Olympic Games, US Open and now WTA Championships. Actually, Serena has never in her career played more matches in one season, with 62 she has now equalled her record from 2009. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

At the Australian Open final back in January, Maria Sharapova won just three games against world No.1 Victoria Azarenka, but today she hit the mark of three games quite quickly, going 3-2 up with a break of serve, which followed an exchange of breaks, and steadily marched on to take the first set. Actually, from 5-4 in the first set, Sharapova won five straight games and experienced no hiccups until the sixth game of the second set. Sharapova needed 16 minutes and 17 seconds to hold her serve after nine deuces, but her next service game she won to love and ended the match.

The 2012 WTA Championships semifinals featured the world's Top 4 players and rematches of two 2012 Grand Slam finals. The final match of the tournament will be a rematch of the Olympic final and I can't wait to see how Sharapova will fare against ice cold and scarily dominant Serena Williams, whom she hasn't beaten in eight years! Both Sharapova and Serena have won the WTA Championship title in their career.

Do you think Serena will ruin Sharapova just as other opponents lately? Can the Russian humble Serena? (photo: Tennis Buzz)

Less than 24 hours after winning the longest best-of-three sets match in the WTA Championships history, Agnieszka Radwanska had to face the merciless Serena Williams and the outcome was not surprising – Serena ran over her opponent in one hour, converting six of seven break opportunities and finishing the match with a crosscourt winner on the line, on Radwanska's serve, without losing a point, 6-2 6-1.

Two longest matches of the tournament featured Radwanska and entering today's semifinal against Serena, Radwanska had ran 9.200 meters on court to Serena's mere 3.500. Exhaustion and fresh and powerful Serena made sure Radwanska would not play another marathon.

Serena likes quick matches and she gets what she likes. The Pole dropped serve at the start of both sets. In the first set she did bring some resistance by rebreaking to level to 2-2, but Serena took charge right away and never looked back. The second game of the second set she won in just one minute and 41 seconds, firing three aces. Radwanska was no match for Williams. Just look at the department of net points – Serena won 13 of 14, while Radwanska went to the net just once. (photo: Moo's Tennis Blog)