KEY BISCAYNE '12: Venus, Serena, Azarenka Win!

Venus Williams won the 602nd match of her stellar career by defeating former #1 Ana Ivanovic, 6-7(4) 6-2 6-2 to reach the quarterfinals of the Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne, which she has won 3 times and her sister Serena Williams has won 5 times. Venus is know only the 14th player in WTA history to reach the 600-win landmark, with an overall win-loss record of 602-147.

World #1 Victoria Azarenka staged an(other) epic comeback from 6-1 5-1 down against Dominique Cibulkova when she came back to extend her 2012 winning streak to 26 matches by gutting out the win 1-6 7-6(7) 7-5. Last year, Azarenka had come back to beat Cibulkova despite being down 6-3 3-1 down at this very same tournament!

Serena Williams rocketed a career high 20 aces in this rematch of the 2011 US Open women's final to defeat Samantha Stosur 7-5 6-3 despite being a break down in both sets.

In the quarterfinals, Serena will face former World #1 Caroline Wozniacki , while Venus will face World #5 Agnieska Radwanska and Azarenka will play Marion Bartoli. The last quarterfnal will feature Li Na versus Maria Sharapova.

INDIAN WELLS '12: Vika Wins 4th Title; Now 23-0!

AFP Photo/ ROBYN BECK

Victoria Azarenka continued her amazing, undefeated 2012 season by winning her 23rd consecutive match, defeating Maria Sharapova 6-2 6-3 and claim her 4th consecutive WTA tournament title of the year, the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, CA.

It was the first time since 2008 that the two players at the top of the WTA Tour met in a tour final, but Azarenka again showed her mastery of Sharapova's game, using controlled aggression and superior movement to highlight the Russian's weaknesses. The Belarussian has now beaten the Russian in the three WTA tour finals they have played, and leads their career head-to-head 5-3.

Azarenka looked very comfortable throughout the match, with Pam Shriver astute commentators noting that she was dressed like she was at practice (in capri pants, shorts and her contractual Nike gear.

It will be interesting to see how far Azarenka can go to match Novak Djokovic's 42-match winning streak of 2011. On the women's side, Martina Hingis and Martina Navratilova have the next longest streak of 37 match wins to start the year.

Azarenka Wins Qatar Open, Now 17-0 In 2012

2012 Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka of Belarus defeated 2011 US Open champion Samantha Stosur of Australia 6-2 6-4 in Doha, Qatar today to win her 3rd title of the year, bringing her winning streak for the year to 17 consecutive matches. Azarenka improved to 11-8 in career WTSA Tour finals, while Stosur is now 3-11.

During her winning streak this year, Azarenka has won in Sydney, Melbourne and now in Doha.  In the next week she will try to win in Dubai as well. The new world #1 is now just 1 game away from matching Maria Sharapova's 18-0 start to the 2008 year. Last year, World #1 Novak Djokovic stunned the tennis world with an astonishing 42-0 start to the year, losing for the first time in 2011 to Roger Federer in the Roland Garros semifinals.

Can Azarenka put together a Djokovic year in 2012? Only time will tell.

AUS OPEN 2012: Azarenka Wins 1st Major (Over Sharapova)

Victoria Azarenka of Belarus defeated Maria Sharapova of Russia in stunning fashion 6-3 6-0 to win her first major singles title, the Australian Open. This was surprising to me, because 3-time major champion Sharapova had played excellent tennis in the two previous rounds, but her game abandoned her completely.

It was a very strange match; some would even call it a mismatch and it reveals a new pattern that has emerged with Sharapova in finals that I mentioned yesterday. In the major finals that Sharapova has lost, the matches have not been remotely close. She won a mere 5 games in losing to Petra Kvitova in the 2011 Wimbledon final, she won 3 games losing to Serena Williams in the 2007 Australian Open final and last night she won 3 games in one set and none in the other against Azarenka last night. The difference was that in those first two losses she was completely outmatched by the other player, who played some of the best tennis of their career. In the match with Azarenka, however, Sharapova lost because she simply played badly, especially after grabbing a 2-0 lead. Her groundstrokes started flying wide and into the net, on both sides, even her usually dependable backhand side. Neither player is known for their movement but even though she was playing on her best surface, Sharapova was moving like she was playing on her worst, with her feet mired in cement. Once Azarenka got over the jitters of playing in her first major  she gained control of her game and basically all she had to do was keep the ball in the court and watch from across the net as her opponent self-destructed, which Sharapova did in historic fashion. I believe it was the first bagel set in a major women's singles final since Serena Williams beat Dinara Safina 6-0 6-3 in the 2009 Australian Open final. (The most recent bagel sets in majorwomen's singles finals were Justine Henin over Clijsters in 2003 at the French Open, Venus Williams over Henin in 2000 at Wimbedon land Martina Hingis over Venus Williams in 1997 at the U.S. Open.)

Azarenka's win makes her the 21st woman to sit atop the WTA rankings and won her 2.4 million Australian dollars. Still at #2 is Kvitova, with Sharapova at #3 and former #1 Caroline Wozniacki sinking to #4. Interestingly, the last 5 major singles tournament on the women's side have been won by 5 different people: Azarenka, Samantha Stosur, Petra Kvitova, Li Na and Kim Clijsters. An exciting time for women's tennis!

AUS OPEN 2012: Venus Withdraws; Seeds Announced

7-time major champion Venus Williams announced today via Twitter that she is withdrawing from the 2012 Australian Open. Venus is now ranked #100 on the WTA Tour.

Also, today the seedings on the Men's and Women's singles were released, generally following the current world rankings:

1. Djokovic, Novak (SRB); 2. Nadal, Rafael (ESP); 3. Federer, Roger (SUI); 4. Murray, Andy (GBR); 5. Ferrer, David (ESP); 6. Tsonga, Jo-Wilfried (FRA); 7. Berdych, Tomas (CZE); 8. Fish, Mardy (USA); 9. Tipsarevic, Janko (SRB); 10. Almagro, Nicolas (ESP); 11. Del Potro, Juan Martin(ARG);12. Simon, Gilles (FRA); 13. Dolgopolov, Alexandr (UKR); 14. Monfils, Gael (FRA); 15. Roddick, Andy (USA); 16. Isner, John (USA); 17. Gasquet, Richard (FRA); 18. Lopez, Feliciano (ESP); 19. Troicki, Viktor (SRB); 20. Mayer, Florian (GER); 21. Wawrinka, Stanislas (SUI); 22. Verdasco, Fernando (ESP); 23. Raonic, Milos (CAN); 24. Nishikori, Kei (JPN); 25. Monaco, Juan (ARG); 26. Granollers, Marcel (ESP); 27. Chela, Juan Ignacio (ARG); 28. Ljubicic, Ivan (CRO); 29. Stepanek, Radek (CZE); 30. Anderson, Kevin (RSA); 31. Melzer, Jurgen (AUT); 32. Bogomolov Jr., Alex (RUS).


1. Wozniacki, Caroline (DEN); 2. Kvitova, Petra (CZE); 3. Azarenka, Victoria (BLR); 4. Sharapova, Maria (RUS); 5. Li, Na (CHN); 6. Stosur, Samantha (AUS); 7. Zvonareva, Vera (RUS); 8. Radwanska, Agnieszka (POL); 9. Bartoli, Marion (FRA); 10. Petkovic, Andrea (GER); 11. Schiavone, Francesca (ITA); 12. Clijsters, Kim (BEL); 13. Williams, Serena (USA); 14. Jankovic, Jelena (SRB); 15. Lisicki, Sabine (GER); 16. Pavlyuchenkova, Anastasia (RUS); 17. Peng, Shuai (CHN); 18. Cibulkova, Dominika (SVK); 19. Kuznetsova, Svetlana (RUS); 20. Pennetta, Flavia (ITA); 21. Hantuchova, Daniela (SVK); 22. Ivanovic, Ana (SRB); 23. Goerges, Julia (GER); 24. Vinci, Roberta (ITA); 25. Safarova, Lucie (CZE); 26. Kanepi, Kaia (EST); 27. Medina Garrigues, Anabel (ESP); 28. Kirilenko, Maria (RUS); 29. Wickmayer, Yanina (BEL); 30. Petrova, Nadezda (RUS); 31. Kerber, Angelique (GER); 32. Niculescu, Monica (ROU).

Kvitova, Stosur, Zvonareva, Azarenka Make WTA Tour Finals

Caroline Wozniacki, #1 player in the world, failed
to make the semifinals of the WTA Tour Championships

The final tournament of the 2011 WTA season is underway in Istanbul, the WTA Tour Championships. Although Serena Williams, Kim Clijsters and Venus Williams did not even qualify, and World #2 Maria Sharapova showed up not fully recovered from an ankle injury and withdrew (from a round-robin tournament!) after losing two matches in a row.

The once and future World #1, Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark clinkched the year-end #1 spot for the second consecutive year despite never having won a major title, and this year she did not even reach the final of a major.

Despite being #1, Wozniacki was dispatched relatively easily by Petra Kvitova after splitting two hard-fought 3-set matches with Agnieska Radwanska and Vera Zvonareva. The hard-hitting Kvitova came through the round-robin rounds undefeated and Zvonareva squeaked into the last semifinal spot ahead of Wozniacki when Radwanska failed to win a set against Kvitova depite being up 5-1.

In the other half of the draw Victoria Azarenka, Samantha Stosur, Li Na and Maria Sharapova (replaced by Marion Bartoli) fought it out for two spots with Stosur and Azarenka coming through to reach the semifinals.

2011 Wimbledon champ Kvitova will face 2011 US Open champ Stosur in one semifinal while Zvonareva faces Azarenka in the other.

MadProfessah predicts: Kvitova vs Azarenka in the final.

US OPEN 2011: Serena Seeded #28!

Serena Williams has won all 12 of the matches she has played on hard courts this year, and has won the US Open 3 times (1999, 2002 and 2008) and the Australian Open (which is also played on a hard court) 5 times (2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010). But somehow the USTA seeding committee decided to seed her at #28, commensurate with her world ranking (at  #29). This is truly bizarre because she entered the tournament using her protected ranking of #1, which she had at the time she left the tour for 49 weeks in July 2010 after winning Wimbledon. She should have been seeded "Co-#1" similar to how Monica Seles was seeded when she came back from injury in 1995 after a 2 year hiatus. After all, Serena suffered a life-threatening malady which prevented her from playing for months.

The top seed at the final major for the year for the second year in a row is Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, who despite being ensconced at the top of the WTA rankings for over a year has yet to win a major title and in fact has only reached one final, two years ago in 2009. The #2 seed is Vera Zvonareva of Russia who was in two major finals last year, while the #3 seed is the 2006 US Open champion, Maria Sharapova, who also made it to this year's Wimbledon final.

In the end it doesn't really matter where Serena is seeded, but she could end up hitting one of the Top 8 seeds in the 3rd round instead of the second week of the tournament. Bad luck for whomever she gets; the draw comes out on Thursday.

Serena Withdraws From Cincinnati With Toe Injury

Serena Williams withdrew from the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati on Wednesday, defaulting her 3rd round match with Samantha Stosur, whom she beat on Sunday to win the Rogers Cup title. The next time Serena appears on court, it will be at the 2011 US Open in New York City.