Remember how Maria Sharapova's former coach Michael Joyce recently criticized Caroline Wozniacki's tendency to let go of coaches too easily? Well, the Dane again has a new coach in her team, the 2002 Australian Open champion Thomas Johansson, and he will stick around at least through the US Open, while he's already been working with the Wozniacki camp for a few weeks.

Wozniacki's father explained that they have already set up a plan with Johansson and after Roland Garros Wozniacki will start training with him in Monaco. By the way, the 37-year-old Johansson has another job, as well as a family.

Just like Joyce pointed out in his criticism that Wozniacki needs to give her coaches more time to prove themselves, Johansson said: "We must give it some time. One doesn't make no miracles in such a short time." (source: Tennis.com, photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Just days before Roland Garros, we have two more titlists at the tournaments leading up to the claycourt Grand Slam – Agnieszka Radwanska and Francesca Schiavone.

Radwanska may not be a top contender for the Roland Garros title, vulnerable against big hitters on clay, but now that she's won the Brussels Open and taking into account the well-known fact that this season she's been defeated only by world No.1 Victoria Azarenka and Petra Cetkovska, the Pole has only reinforced her image of a hot 2012 player. It's true that Radwanska faced no Top 20 opponents en route to the Brussels title (her highest-ranked competitor was world No.25 Kaia Kanepi in the semifinals), but still it's always an achievement to take home some hardware. In the Brussels final against Simona Halep, the Romanian was serving for the set when the top-seeded Radwanska bounced back to win nine straight games for a 7-5 6-0 victory. Read more »

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Will it be red hot Maria Sharapova or Serena Williams? Once clumsy on clay, Sharapova is now a definite favorite for the Roland Garros trophy. With Stuttgart and Rome titles this season, Sharapova has raised her record in clay finals to 5-0 and she's 11-0 on dirt this season. Also, four of her last five titles have come on clay. The 2002 French Open champion Serena is on a 17-match winning streak on clay, the second best clay streak this century, and even though she withdrew in the semifinals of Rome, she's expected to be healthy for Roland Garros. Just like Sharapova, Serena won two titles on clay this year, in Charleston and Madrid.

World number one Victoria Azarenka has had a stellar season, with a 35-3 win-loss record, four titles, including her first Grand Slam at the Australian Open, and two finals in eight tournaments she played in 2012. As for the clay season, she played the finals of Stuttgart and Madrid and beat three former French Open champions on the way (Svetlana Kuznetsova, Ana Ivanovic and Li Na) before losing to the hottest players of the moment, to Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. Azarenka then withdrew from Rome after comfortably winning her opener, saying that she didn't even want to enter the tournament in the first place, but was forced by the pressure of WTA rules. This will be the first time Azarenka is top seed at a Grand Slam. Read more »

Kim Clijsters retired from tennis in May 2007, got married in July 2007, gave birth to lovely daughter Jada in February 2008, and then made a historic comeback which included three Grand Slam titles, while in her "first career" she won one. However, the Belgian has now decided to definitely call it quits. At the moment she's not playing due to a hip injury, and she will skip Roland Garros, but she will come back on grass, play the Unicef Open, definitely the Olympics, and then after the US Open, the major whose trophy she's lifted three times, there will be no more competitive courts for Clijsters.

"That will be a special tournament," Clijsters told a press conference at the presentation of StarMeal, a new food concept. "We'll be in the United States with my husband's family. The US Open is the perfect way to say goodbye."

Imagine that Clijsters ends her career by winning the US Open! Do you think it's possible? Remember that she won at Flushing Meadows in 2009 after playing just two warm-up tournaments since returning from more than two years out of sport and even successfully defended the title the following year.

The 2012 US Open starts on August 27.

Longtime reader Brenda showed me the new Adidas dress that Ana Ivanovic is expected to wear at Wimbledon 2012.

The clothing item is called Adidas Women's Lawn Adizero Dress and comes in white with an infrared line cruising from back to front. The top of the dress is asymmetrical on both sides.

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