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)

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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