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)

Two surprising fashion switches welcomed us at the very start of 2012. Without prior notice, Jelena Jankovic took the 2012 courts in Fila and not in Anta which had been her clothing sponsor for three years. Samantha Stosur also made an apparel change and substituted her Lacoste tennis clothes with Asics, whose shoes she has been wearing for two years.

No official information on Jankovic's cooperation with Fila has been announced yet, but the world No.14 debuted her possible new clothing sponsor in the first round of the Brisbane International, in the match against Carla Suarez Navarro. The Fila Center Court Dress was on the courts for two more matches, until Jankovic lost to Francesca Schiavone in a quarterfinal marathon, 5-7 7-6(2) 6-3, after wasting two match points in the second set.

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Dear readers,

Women's Tennis Blog is wishing you a wonderful holiday season and a very happy 2012. Let health be with you in the new year, followed by love, friendship, harmony, prosperity and fun. Of course, I am wishing all this to our WTA players as well, so that they can bring us another enjoyable tennis season, with less injuries hopefully.

Thank you for supporting Women's Tennis Blog, which is now unbelievably entering its fifth year of existence (the official birthday is on March 31). By reading us every day you are making this online WTA portal successful and I can't thank you enough for that. I hope to continue receiving your support in 2012.

And talking about support, if you haven't already, do vote for Women's Tennis Blog at the Baseline Awards in the Best Tennis Blog category. There's only one day left! Follow this link, click on Vote Today, and the survey will lead you.

Take care and indulge in celebration!

Cheers,

Marija

(photo: ewphoto)

In Part 1 of our feature on slamless number ones we closely analyzed the years in which players reached No.1 ranking without winning a Grand Slam title and the five such players are the likes of Kim Clijsters, Amelie Mauresmo, Jelena Jankovic, Dinara Safina and Caroline Wozniacki (the first two won Grand Slam titles later in their careers). This Part 2 will focus on Martina Hingis and Lindsay Davenport – players who had years in their careers that they finished on top of the rankings without claiming a single Grand Slam title during that season – so they could theoretically be called slamless No.1s, even though they had won Grand Slams in the previous years, because in some years they were ranked No.1 they had no majors won. If these two analyses don't stop all the fuss about the recent "shameful" slamless No.1s I don't know what will! Omair, bring on the numbers!

We have talked a lot about the spot being held by Caroline Wozniacki, Dinara Safina and Jelena Jankovic and discussed about whether their reign at the top was (is, in case of Wozinacki) fair or not. How did they end up being at the top of rankings without winning a major first? We did not appreciate their consistency throughout the year, tournament in, tournament out, what we did was only criticize them about being the slamless No.1s. I guess that's enough of it, let's move on to something I wanted to share with you guys. The other day I was going through the Tennis.com forums and there I saw that during the past 11 years, i.e. from the beginning of the 20th century, seven times a player has ended the year as No.1 and she did not win a single Grand Slam during the year. Here is the list of year-end No.1 players from 2000 onwards.

Martina Hingis, though she had won Grand Slams before 2000, did not end up winning a single major in 2000 and despite that she ended the year as world No.1. Lindsay Davenport had also won Grand Slams before 2001 but she did not win a single major in 2001, 2004 and 2005 and despite that she ended the years as No.1.

These two players did clinch the top spot without winning a major during that year, yet they have never been criticized for this achievement like Jelena Jankovic, Dinara Safina and Caroline Wozniacki. Some people argue that they did not win a major during that year but they had won it before that year, which to me is not a very strong logic. I think that these two players were not criticized because by winning a Grand Slam these two players had demonstrated their ability to win majors and hence put the critics to the silent mode.

In our Part 1 we had focused on the years of Clijsters, Mauresmo, Jankovic, Safina and Wozniacki, let's now have a look at how well Hingis and Davenport performed in the years they earned the top spot without winning a major. We won't include the stats of slamless year-end No.1s Jankovic and Wozniacki because we had already included them in our Part 1. Hope you people enjoy it

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In the 2011 fashion retrospections we have included major brands such as Nike (in several perspectives – on Maria Sharapova, Petra Kvitova, Serena Williams), Adidas on Daniela Hantuchova and Ana Ivanovic and on Andrea Petkovic, Lacoste on Samantha Stosur, Anta on Jelena Jankovic and Stella McCartney on Caroline Wozniacki, and now we're going to have a close look at Fila as worn by their brightest stars Kim Clijsters and Svetlana Kuznetsova.

Even though the Fila clothes themselves are not on top of my list when it comes to tennis fashion, I cannot imagine any other brand looking better on Clijsters and Kuznetsova. Therefore, I'm a huge fan of Fila and the way they nurture the vintage sporty look.

Fila doesn't experiment with ruffles, layers, glitter, dizzy patterns, etc. They like to keep designs traditionally athletic, meant primarily to cover your body so that you can play freely, without thinking whether some part of a dress would fall off (problems you would definitely face with Venus Williams' EleVen line). Read more »

When I look back on 2011, these are the best sponsorship photos of a WTA player. Hilarious! I was guilty of not sharing them the moment they were released, but better late then never.

Russian power tools company Prorab announced their sponsorship of Vera Zvonareva and these weird photos of the tennis star in her K-Swiss apparel with tools and machines emerged.

A WTA player is advertising concrete mixers, compressors, pumps, sawing machines, drilling machines, chainsaws, electric screwdrivers. Can it get any cooler than that?  (source: Slice)

Cari Champion, an anchor and courtside reporter for the TennisChannel, tweeted that Alisa Kleybanova, who was diagnosed with a serious illness, Hodgkin's lymphoma, has ended her chemo/radiation therapy and is even considering returning to the tennis courts soon.

The Russian reached a career-high ranking of No.20 in February 2011, but stopped playing after the Rome tournament in May due to the form of cancer. If everything goes well, the 22-year-old will slowly resume practicing in February in Florida and her coach is hopeful that she will play French Open tune-ups and the claycourt Grand Slam.

This favorable development of situation is still depending on a lot of factors, but at least it sounds promising. I'm really glad that Alisa has prospects of playing among the big names again, where she belongs. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

In the video above you can see the footage of world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki's practice with her new coach Ricardo Sanchez in Dubai. Interestingly, her father Piotr, mother Anna and boyfriend Rory McIlory were all there to watch on the best-ranked WTA player. And now that we've mentioned the ranking, these days there have been quite a few high-profile diagnosis for Wozniacki's lack of Grand Slam titles and pieces of advice for her 2012 season.

Nick Bollettieri accused Wozniacki of being too predictable, despite praising her abilities:

If she wants to win a Grand Slam, she should do anything other than what opponents expect of her. They have figured her out [...] She has a good foundation to play an elaborate game. She moves extremely well, [but] she can only win a Grand Slam if she disregards the thought that says that she can only get the ball back and be a steady player.

Bollettieri also made a hilarious statement about the patience of Wozniacki's new coach who used to collaborate with Jelena Jankovic:

Anyone who has managed to work with Jelena Jankovic for long time deserves a medal—it’s not easy to be with her.

Sven Groeneveld, who has helped coach Wozniacki over the past few years, believes that in order to finally win a Grand Slam the Dane has to reduce her schedule.

Does she need to play Madrid, Rome and Brussels in row right up to Roland Garros? And is it really necessary to play a hard-court tournament (Copenhagen) before Wimbledon? The key is to stay focused before and during a Grand Slam.

In addition, in the latest article on Tennis.com by Steve Tignor, Wozniacki is called the "biggest women's disappointment".

Hm, even though Wozniacki should do her best to add a Grand Slam title to her biography, she's not as bad as it's been widely presented in the tennis world, and analysis of actual numbers here on Women's Tennis Blog have been proving it, such as "Part 1: Comparison of the five slamless No.1s and the origin of the phenomenon". Part 2 entitled "Hingis and Davenport were just as slamless No.1s as Jankovic, Safina and Wozniacki and nobody criticized them" will be even more revealing! Part 2 will be posted in a few days. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

We can't leave out Serena Williams from our yearly fashion retrospections despite her appearing on the tennis courts only in the middle of the season. The Nike team was eagerly preparing dresses for the 13-time Grand Slam champion even for the tournaments she skipped due to illness and injury – like the white and blue dress for the Australian Open and the Summer Smash Knit dress for Roland Garros.

The season for Serena started in June at Eastbourne and the American finally gave justice to Nike's efforts, promoting her pink ruffle dress intended for the grand stage of Roland Garros.

Serena was trying to defend her Wimbledon title in a deep V-neck dress with black accenting lines. The outfit was complete with a stylish accompanying jumper in the length of the dress. Read more »

Ana Ivanovic’s official website released photos from her photo shoot with prominent photographer John Russo. The photos were taken in spring and the setting was Red Rock in Las Vegas. The purpose was the cover of Vanidades magazine.

Don’t you love Ana’s look and the scenery? You can see more photos from the shoot in Ana's gallery.