Jelena Jankovic is the leader of Chinese presence in the world of tennis fashion and her clothing sponsor Anta made a small revolution in the beginning of 2009 when they converted the Reebok-clad Jankovic into their representative, while she was on top of the world rankings. So Anta showed great management in exposing the brand to the tennis world, but how great are they in making clothes for the women's tennis market? Let's see on the example of JJ's dresses in her third year of cooperation with Anta.

It's a known fact that Jankovic is all about glitter, vibrant colors and weird patterns, and some atypical designs can work only on her, more precisely, only on her personality. That said, do you think Anta matched JJ's potential to the full?

Initially Anta was mostly labeled as looking kind of cheap. After three years, do you think they've improved? It's hard for me to say, but I can give a small "yes". Or maybe now that JJ's ranking has dropped our expectation are lower? Read more »

Dinara Safina updated her Twitter followers, i.e. "her sweet tweeties", on her upcoming tennis plans and the news is that her career is still on hold. We will certainly not see the 25-year-old Russian on the courts in the beginning of the 2012 season and at the Australian Open, and whether she will ever come back to tennis is still a big question. Read more »

Adding modeling to your biography is a must when you reach tennis heights. Some players enjoy that part of the job more than the others. The 2011 Wimbledon winner Petra Kvitova, recently honored by the ITF world champion title, had a modeling experience last month and it sucked the energy out of her.

The 21-year-old Kvitova had her hair and makeup done for a photo spread in iSport in her native Czech Republic and after the experience she realized that tennis racquet will remain her work tool of choice, designer clothes will be put aside. Read more »

I came across this video of 13-year-old Maria Sharapova talking about the role of her father Yuri in her life and tennis career. Today I admire Sharapova for her eloquence, so it's funny to see her from the times she was less articulate.

The interview of the young Sharapova is a perfect addition to our series dedicated to tennis stars when they were little, although Masha has been featured two times so far: in June 2010 when I showed you a bunch of her childhood photos and a few months earlier when I shared a video of a junior final between little Sharapova and Peng Shuai.

The first Women's Tennis Blog's fashion retrospection was dedicated to Maria Sharapova's Nike dresses in 2007 and the unofficial queen of tennis elegance remains an absolute must in our yearly overviews. During the five years we've been paying close attention to her outfits, we noticed that 2011 is the year she tuned down her glamorous and extraordinary looks and turned to more common dresses, wearable for everyday practice.

In the period between 2007 and 2010 Sharapova had at least one piece that absolutely stood out with uniqueness and extravagance - in 2007 those were the red and white US Open dresses with a chest area resembling a New York skyline (my all-time favorites!), in 2008 it was a luxurious Federer-style Wimbledon outfit, in 2009 the light layers of her dresses from the start of the season, in 2010 it was the seaweed Australian Open dress and again very unique US Open collar dresses.

In my humble opinion, Sharapova's 2011 dresses are all beautiful but more sporty, more simple than in the previous years. There still are a lot of details, but the designs are less striking than what we got used to associating with the Russian fashion queen. What's your view? Did you happen to notice the same? Read more »

When in May 2011 Caroline Wozniacki laughed at her friend's remark that "boys are like parking lots, all the good ones are taken", she didn't even imagine that one taken guy would soon become hers. Probably less than two months after the discouraging quote, the young Danish world No.1 hooked up with a successful young golfer Rory McIlroy and the two are famous for always being eager to show the world their happiness and tell everyone how well they understand each other as fellow top athletes.

However, behind the story of the two high-profile love birds is the broken heart of Rory's ex-girlfriend of six years - Holly Sweeney. The 21-year-old opened up in an interview for the Irish Sunday Mirror and said how hurtful the unexpected breakup was and how all the publicity of "Wozzilroy" makes it even worse.

It killed me – that's why I went away to Dubai as soon as we split up, so I didn't have to look or think about it. But when you're on a beach with nothing to take your mind off things, it still crops up. So you couldn't get away from it no matter what you did, it was still all over Twitter as well. So even if I was trying to take my mind off it, it still snuck its way back in.

Read more »

After Adidas by Stella McCartney, Nike, Adidas Barricade and EleVen, let's see what Lacoste designed for tennis players in 2011, on the example of their most famous representative, Australian Samantha Stosur.

The 27-year-old Stosur had a stellar season highlighted by the US Open trophy, but how successful her year was from a fashion perspective? The highest ranked Lacoste representative changed only a handful of dresses during the season, staying faithful to her unexperimental designs.

When you compare these 2011 clothes with Lacoste from 2010, you will see that even colors haven't changed much: red/orange, white and black are still predominant. Only that the detailing of the three small buttons was abandoned for the 2011 designs, which welcomed stripes for spring and summer. Read more »

In her first match in four months Kim Clijsters, feeling "perhaps fitter than ever", defeated world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki in a singles match-up at the 2011 Diamond Games exhibition, 6-2 7-6(5). The Belgian continued with a 6-2 6-1 victory in doubles, playing with her younger sister Elke Clijsters, an ITF Junior Doubles World Champion, while Wozniacki was teamed up with Belgian world No.26 Yanina Wickmayer.

The 10,000 spectators at the Antwerp Sports Palace were treated to a number of entertaining stunts.

Wozniacki and Clijsters were imitating infamous WTA screamers: Read more »