Hot shot: Kim Clijsters and daughter Jada on You magazine

On November 22, US Open champion Kim Clijsters was on cover of most important British women's magazine You, which is delivered every Sunday with Mail on Sunday. The magazine also featured a extensive article and family pictures of Clijsters with husband Brian Lynch and daughter Jada.


(photo linked from MailOnline, read the whole article here)

WTA hotties Awards 2009 nominations!!

From November 29th we will be hosting the WTA hotties Awards 2009 (our first awards ever!). Here are the nominees for the different categories.

Player of the year
* Serena Williams
* Dinara Safina
* Svetlana Kuznetsova

Doubles team of the year
* Cara Black & Liezel Huber
* Serena Williams & Venus Williams
* Maria Jose Martinez & Nuria Llagostera

Most improved player
* Caroline Wozniacki
* Victoria Azarenka
* Samantha Stosur

Breakthrough player of the year
* Yanina Wickmayer
* Sabine Lisicki
* Melanie Oudin

Match of the year
* Jelena Dokic def Alisa Kleybanova 7-5 5-7 8-6 (Australian Open R16)
* Svetlana Kuznetsova def Serena Williams 7-6(3) 5-7 7-5 (Roland Garros QF)
* Serena Williams def Elena Dementieva 6-7(4) 7-5 8-6 (Wimbledon SF)

Most inspiring performance
* Jelena Dokic's run at Australian Open
* Melanie Oudin's run at US Open
* Kim Clijsters' comeback and US Open title

There will also be a Special Award, but I'm keeping this as a secret.

Tell us what your choices would be.

WTA hotties joins Facebook and Twitter

Hey! We just opened WTA hotties pages on Facebook and Twitter. This way it will be easier for you to keep up to date with all the news, as every post on WTA hotties will appear also on our Facebook and Twitter pages, which will also feature aditional comments or short pieces of news. Furthermore, there you may be able to get in touch with other WTA fans.

Follow us on twitter at:
http://twitter.com/WTAhotties

Join us in Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/WTAhotties

Photo galleries updated

WTA season is over, but WTA hotties doesn't take a break and we have plans to make the off-season less boring, including holding 1st WTA Hotties Awards, collecting 1st WTA hotties Hot 100 list and opening facebook and twitter profiles.

First step has been an extensive update of our photo gallery, with more than 600 new photos of 2009 season and new galleries for Kim Clijsters, Samantha Stosur, Yanina Wickmayer, Sabine Lisicki, Jie Zheng, Sorana Cirstea and Jelena Dokic.

Check WTA hotties photo gallery here

Hot topic: Is it Wickmayer's ban fair?

U.S. Open semifinalist Yanina Wickmayer was suspended last week for one year by a Belgian anti-doping tribunal, accused of failing to report her whereabouts to drug-testing officials three times. Wickmayer's suspension came as a surprise, because a prosecutor recommended she receive only a warning for missing three tests over 18 months. (read the article on Yahoo! Sports)

At a tearful news conference last Thursday, Wickmayer said she was never properly informed of the online reporting requirements for drug-testing that led to her one-year ban from the sport. The 20 years-old Belgian plans to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.(read the transcript on HCFoo's Tennis Blog)

In my opinion, Wickmayer's ban is far too extreme, given that she didn't fail or miss any dopping test (she just failed reporting her whereabouts), it is proven that the online report system didn't work properly and the players didn't receive information nor education on the system and procedures. A warning would have been more appropiate as the prosecutor recommended. This way they may ruin the career of a young player who probably is not into doping and has received a harder punishment than other players who were tested positive (i.e. Richard Gasquet only was 2 months away from Tour after being tested positive for cocaine).

Appart form unfairness of this ban to Wickmayer, whom we support from this blog, this bring two important problems of anti-doping laws:

- Why the rules, system and tribunal are not the same for players all around the world? Instead, they must stick to their countries authorities. If Wickmayer was not Belgian, she probably wouldn't have been banned. Belgian authorities have already been proved too be excessively strict concerning anti-doping rules, as in 2004 when they wrongly acussed Svetlana Kuznetsova of doping (read it on CNN.com)

- Is it fair that players have to communicate where they are at any time and be available for testing 365 days a year? Many players, as ATP No.2 Rafael Nadal, have already complained about this. This is really problematic for tennis players, as they spend 10 months out of home and their plans are always changing depending on if they are accepted into a tournament, in which round they lose, if they are healthy or must withdraw from a tournament... I think for tennis players it would be easier to test in tournaments, and only test out-of-competition in the off-season or when a player takes a 3-4 week break from tournaments.

So, what's your oppinion on this hot topic?

Hot gossip: L.A. Lakers' Sasha Vujacic, new boyfriend for Maria Sharapova

According to latest rumours, Maria Sharapova's new boyfriend is Slovenian basketball player and NBA champion with L.A. Lakers Sasha Vujacic.
Read it on Women's Tennis Blog

Player of the week: Aravane Rezai

Despite being one of the latest players to qualify, 22 years old French player Aravane Rezai surprised everyone as she became the first champion of the new WTA Tournament of Champions that was held in Bali last week.


Rezai started the tournament losing the first set to 4th seed and WTA #25 Sabine Lisicki by 6/1, but she came back to win the match. And in fact this was the only set she lost throughout the week. She secured her place in the semifinals defeating WTA #38 Melinda Czink in straight sets. In the semifinals she overcame doubles Championship winner and WTA #30 Maria Jose Martinez. But the final was going to be a much tougher test, as she was facing 1st seed and WTA #12 Marion Bartoli. Rezai won the 1st set by 7/5 and benefited of Bartoli's retirement due to quadriceps strain.


This is biggest career title for Rezai, who this week reaches her career best ranking at #26.

WTA ranking as of 9-Nov-2009

No changes on WTA Top 10 this last week of the season as top players' season already ended last week with the Sony Ericsson Championships. Runner-up in the Tournament of Champions, Marion Bartoli climbs to #11 just 35 points away from Top-10, whereas champion Aravane Rezai moves from #44 to a career-high ranking at #26. Also career-high rankings for 1-year suspended Yanina Wickmayer, who gains 2 places up to #16 and Maria Jose Martinez, who moves from #30 to #27 to finish as Belgian and Spanish No.1 respectively. Japanese veteran Kimiko Date-Krumm gains 19 places up to #82, although greatest gainer in Top-100 is Yung-Jan Chan, who climbs 21 places up to #94 after her title in ITF $100,000+H in Taipei.

Cur	Prv	Name	Country	Rank pts.	Tours.
1	(1)	Serena Williams	USA	9075	18
2	(2)	Dinara Safina	RUS	7800	19
3	(3)	Svetlana Kuznetsova	RUS	6141	19
4	(4)	Caroline Wozniacki	DEN	5875	27
5	(5)	Elena Dementieva	RUS	5585	20
6	(6)	Venus Williams	USA	5126	17
7	(7)	Victoria Azarenka	BLR	4820	17
8	(8)	Jelena Jankovic	SRB	3965	20
9	(9)	Vera Zvonareva	RUS	3560	21
10	(10)	Agnieszka Radwanska	POL	3450	24

Week #44: Italy wins Fed Cup title, Rezai gets 1st Tournament of Champions

As it was expected, Italy found little opposition in the American team burdened by the abscence of the Williams sisters, and captured 2009 Fed Cup title by 4-0 for joy of their home crowd. The tie was almost decided after the first day with the straight-set victories of Flavia Pennetta and Francesca Schiavone over Alexa Glatch and Melanie Oudin respectively. Italian No.1 Flavia Pennetta secured the title on the second day overcoming USA No.1 Melanie Oudin. This is the 2nd Fed Cup title for Italy (first was on 2006) and their third final appearance in the last four years.

In Bali, Aravane Rezai benefited of Marion Bartoli's retirement to win an all-French final and become the first winner of WTA Tournament of Champions. In the semis Rezai got rid of Spanish Maria Jose Martinez, while Bartoli defeated Japanese veteran Kimiko Date-Krumm. Nevertheless, the most important news were outside the court as Belgian Yanina Wickmayer withdrew after being suspended for 1 year by the Flemish Doping Tribunal for failing to inform about her whereabouts for three times.

Fed Cup Final, Reggio Calabria (Italy)
Italy def. USA 4-0
Flavia Pennetta def Alexa Glatch 6/3 6/1
Francesca Schiavone def Melanie Oudin 7/6 6/2
Flavia Pennetta def Melanie Oudin 7/5 6/2
S.Errani/R.Vinci def L.Huber/V.King 4/6 6/3 11/9

Tournament of Champions, Bali (INA), $600,000
Final: Aravane Rezai (FRA) def Marion Bartoli (FRA) 7/5 ret.

Hot stuff: Caroline Wozniacki and Victoria Azarenka making fun of themselves

In this video published on Sony Ericsson WTA website you can see another side of the players as they enjoy Players Party at the Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha. And it is especially enjoyable to find out the good sense of humor of young players Caroline Wozniacki and Victoria Azarenka, who make fun of themshelves. Azarenka calls Wozniacki "a pusher" while Wozniacki calls Azarenka "a brainless ballbasher". By chance, these are the nicknames that their critics in the biggest online fan base (tennisforum.com) give them. Is it a coincidence? Anyway it is nice to see that these young girls take rivalry and critics in such a good way.

Check the video in Sony Ericsson WTA Tour website