Saying "It’s sport" on her Facebook page, Petra Kvitova consoled herself after a 1-6 7-5 6-2 loss to Li Na in the semifinals of the Apia International Sydney. As you know, Kvitova could have become No.1 ahead of the Australian Open had she won the title in Sydney.

Defending champion Li seemed to be free falling towards defeat when Kvitova won the first set by giving up only one game and broke in the beginning of the following set to lead 3-1. However, the French Open champion Li fearlessly clawed back into the match and scored her fourth victory of the week, after wins over Ekatarina Makarova, Chanelle Scheepers and Lucie Safarova. Remember that in the entire post-French Open part of last season, i.e. since June, Li won a total of only seven matches.

Li’s opponent in the final will be Victoria Azarenka, who also overcame a 6-1 deficit to beat Agnieszka Radwanska 1-6 6-3 6-2, the conqueror of No.1 Caroline Wozniacki in the previous round. Li is 4-2 in career meetings with Azarenka, but it was Azarenka who handily won their last clash 6-2 6-2 at the WTA Championships at the end of 2011. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Caroline Wozniacki opened her competitive tennis season at the Apia International Sydney and after surviving the three-set challenge against Dominika Cibulkova in the second round, the top-seeded Dane fell in the quarterfinals to Agnieszka Radwanska. On the other hand, world No.2 Petra Kvitova stormed into the semifinals with a 6-0 6-4 victory over Daniela Hantuchova, last week's Brisbane finalist, and is now only two matches away from overtaking the top ranking from Wozniacki.

In the previous round Wozniacki worked her way past Dominika Cibulkova  7-5 2-6 6-4, the player she lost to in her opening match in Sydney last year. In the quarterfinals, Wozniacki was serving for the match at 6-3 5-4, but Radwanska complicated the scenario by winning three straight games to take the match to the third set. Somewhere in the middle of the third set Wozniacki had her left wrist strapped and looked more and more affected by the injury. Finally she lost 3-6 7-5 6-2 and the seriousness of her injury will be determined tomorrow.

Last year's Sydney champion Li Na, who defeated Lucie Safarova 6-2 7-6 (3), will be Kvitova's opponent in one semifinal, while the other semifinal will be played between Victoria Azarenka, who beat Marion Bartoli 7-5 6-4, and Agnieszka Radwanska. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

At a Polish website dedicated to style, the country's No.1 player Agnieszka Radwanska presented her modeling skills and talked about her early life, family and the way she handles money. Thanks to The Slice we have rough translations of several Radwanska's statements.

Even though the 22-year-old likes to pamper herself with a Louis Vuitton bag when she wins a tournament, she's not shy of wearing cheap clothes as well and the majority of what she earns is invested in more stable assets:

Money is primarily invested in real estate.

As for tennis, just like most WTA players, Radwanska has never known for anything else in her life:

There were difficult moments, but overall I was happy. Besides, I knew no other life, I never wondered if I could do something else. Read more »

Andrea Petkovic has a lower back stress fracture, which forced her to have an injury timeout during her 7-5 6-4 loss to Agnieszka Radwanska in the second round of the Apia International Sydrey, and will not play the upcoming Australian Open.

The tenth-ranked Petkovic would have been seeded No.10 at the Grand Slam. Last year the top German played the quarterfinals of three Grand Slams, including the Australian Open.

Petkovic’s withdrawal came just after Venus Williams confirmed she would have to skip the tournament due to her Sjogren's syndrome. (photo: sr_cranks)

On the steps of Victoria Parliament House in Melbourne 370 Australian Open ball kids posed in blue shirts with tennis balls in their hands. But there's one WTA player hiding in the crowd. Can you spot her? Who do you think it is? Click on "Read more" to see who the intruder is. Read more »

In a short statement on her website, Venus Williams announced an unfortunate piece of news that her comeback will be postponed until after the Australian Open.

The tennis star, suffering from an autoimmune disorder called Sjogren's syndrome, has been training and receiving treatment for several months, and although she has experienced noticeable progress towards top form, she will have to skip the first Grand Slam of the season. Williams’ return is expected in February.

Williams hasn't played since the US Open and has fallen to No.100 in the rankings. She was ranked 36th during the US Open. (photo: sr_cranks)

Samantha Stosur lost 6-2 6-4 in the first round of the Apia International Sydney to Francesca Schiavone, which is her second straight early loss at a tournament on her home soil this year, ahead of the Australian Open, and the big expectations and her own desire to do well at the Grand Slam in her country, following her US Open title win, seem to be catching up with big-hitting Stosur.

When she won her maiden major title in September 2011 by beating Serena Williams in the final, Stosur couldn't wait to start the same quest in Australia, but now that the moment has come, she lost her second match in Brisbane and her opening match in Sydney. The 27-year-old is admitting to be falling under the pressure:

That's what makes the loss so difficult, Melbourne is coming up and I want to start playing well. I think today I certainly didn't handle that (expectation) side of things at all well.

I went into it with the right frame of mind, and got out there and it (the crowd support) kind of hit me. It did kind of surprise me how much it kind of hamstrung me today.

Stosur played the Australian Open main draw nine times and has never been past the fourth round. Do you think she will overcome the pressure and improve her Australian Open result armed with a Grand Slam triumph experience? (photo: Stephane Martinache)

At the ASB Classic in Auckland, world No.34 Zheng Jie won her first title since 2006, but the final match was an unfinished battle, as her opponent Flavia Pennetta retired at 2-6 6-3 2-0 with a low back injury. We're only a week into the tennis season, and the number of WTA players injured or ill is close to ten.

In the first round Zheng defeated Ayumi Morita, in the second eighth seeded Monica Niculescu, in the quarterfinals Lucie Hradecka, then third seed Svetlana Kuznetsova for the first time in their seven meetings, and finally Pennetta.

Zheng's first title came in Hobart in 2005, and since winning Estoril and Stockholm in 2006 she hasn't clinched any titles, even though she played two Grand Slam semifinals – at Wimbledon 2008 and Australian Open 2010.

Regarding Pennetta's injury, she started feeling it at 4-2 in the first set and an MRI scan will reveal how serious it is. (photo via ASB Classic)

At the Brisbane International, which is now a Premier tournament, Kaia Kanepi won her second and biggest title after beating Daniela Hantuchova 6-2 6-1 in the final. Her maiden WTA title came two years ago at the International-level event in Palermo.

The first to lead, 2-1, was Hantuchova, but from then on Kanepi won nine straight games and in the second set she lost just one point in the first four games. 

Kanepi's most thrilling match was in the first round against Alexandra Panova, 121st-ranked qualifier, which ended after more than two hours of play, 7-5 3-6 6-2. Three seeded players followed and the scoreline was more straightforward, often much more: 6-0 6-3 against seed No.7 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, 6-1 7-6(7) against seed No.2 Andrea Petkovic, and 6-3 6-0 against seed No.3 Francesca Schiavone in the semis.

The 26-year-old Kanepi is a significant Estonian in many ways: she's the first from her country to reach a WTA final, the first to play a Grand Slam quarterfinal, the first to crack  Top 20, win a WTA title and beat a regining world No.1 when she defeated Caroline Wozniacki in Tokyo last year.

The prize of $110,000 reached Kanepi's pocket with the Brisbane title and the Estonian is projected to rise from No.34 to No.26 in the rankings. (photo via Brisbane International)

Playing her first tournament since a four-month abdominal injury lay-off, Kim Clijsters had to give up her Brisbane International semifinal against Daniela Hantuchova because of a left hip injury, thus handing the Slovak her second straight uncompleted victory, as Serena Williams gave her a walkover in their quarterfinal due to an ankle problem.

Clijsters won the tiebreak 7-4 and already in that first set she felt stiffening, which was getting worse. She didn't want to risk and cause a complete spasm and muscle tear, so she stopped while trailing 3-1 in the second set.

Australian Open title defense is just a week and a half away for Clijsters. Tomorrow she will have an MRI to check the seriousness of the injury, but she's not blindly optimistic: "I don't doubt that there will be a problem once I start in Melbourne".

Hantuchova's opponent in the final will be Kaia Kanepi, who defeated Francesca Schiavone 6-3 6-0 in the semifinals.

Additional info: The 2012 season has barely started, and it seems that my New Year's wishes are not coming true – injuries are already piling up. Besides Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters, Sabine Lisicki is having a left abdominal muscle injury, Ksenia Pervak migrane, Polona Hercog low back injury, and not to mention Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova who have delayed their beginning of the season due to illness and injury. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)