Today's Ace

1. Ana Ivanovic on the coolest thing she has ever received during a tennis tournament, about tennis players dating golfers etc.

2. Victoria Azarenka has equaled Serena's 2003 start of 23-0, after defeating Agnieszka Radwanska 6-0, 6-2 in the quarterfinals of BNP Paribas Open. She has struck right back at Aga (who had earlier claimed what Vika had been doing in the semis of Qatar Open,2012 was not right image for women's tennis and she had lost respect for her) by saying "I hope I was a good example of women's tennis" right after her win against Aga.

3. Maria Sharapova talks about her wedding plans, basketball, sketching, understanding between her and Sasha here.

4. Roger Federer's wife Mirka and their twin kids showed up for the first time in BNP Paribas Open, 2012. They were watching their father take on Thomaz Bellucci. They are quite adorable.

5. Dominika Cibulkova wanted to be an actress right from her childhood. She also talks about her puppies, her height issues, her junior days..

Today's Ace

1. Maria Sharapova is working on something called "Sugarpova".

2. Caroline Wozniacki feels the fans in Asia are so different from others. "They are loud, screaming, yelling".

3. Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci takes football challenge and the girls are really good in football.

4. Virus is fast spreading in Indian Wells with many players being affected by it. It has created a panic among the players but not Li Na. She doesn't even know about this virus. Schiavone, Monfils, Kohlschreiber, Zvonareva, Seppi, Rybarikova, King and Melzer have all pulled out due to infection. World No.1 Novak (the nerd) has a great idea to keep the virus away. Here it is.

5. Ana Ivanovic played her third round match against Ksenia Pervak in Indian Wells. She did a great job winning the match after losing the first set. There was her good friend Sorana Cristea supporting her during the match. Team Adidas bonding?

Pic Courtesy: @bellyflopz

6. This interview is kinda epic. Especially the last one.

Agnieszka Radwanska Vs Flavia Pennetta

In no matter of time, Flavia Pennetta got up 3-0 on the scoreboard in first set. When Flavia came inside the baseline, she had been forcing Aga into errors and enabling her to hit the winners. Then, world no.5 constructed a beautiful point pushing the Italian to the backhand corner of the court and then pumping a forehand winner in the fourth game of the set. This point, certainly, increased the confidence of Radwanska. Aga finally won the game breaking Flavia for the first time. It was first of the 4 games that Aga won consecutively. From there, Aga lost just one game and took the first set.

Flavia took advantage of the poor second serve by Aga to break and get an early lead in the second set. Having broken Aga, Flavia handed an easy break to Aga making her to level the set. Couple of next games went in favour of the servers making the scoreline 2-2. Both the players were coming towards the net consistently and playing the drop shots, lobs, slices, angled shots. But it was Aga who performed better at crucial moments winning the next 4 games to win the match. Flavia was all over the place and errors were flying out of her racquet. She completely seemed lost during the last 4 games.

Both the girls dint serve well. Aga, who is known for her big serve, dint serve well in this match. And also Aga was seen struggling to hit the lobs that Flavia sent her way. Aga needs to pull her game up in the forthcoming matches where she will be facing some top players.

Today's Ace

1. Li Na is not only on fire in the tennis court (dropping just 4 games in her third round match), but also off court. She plays a different ball game and wins it easily. Here is the video.

2. Agnieszka Radwanska can not only play long matches, but can also dance for hours. She doesn't like switching to new things. She is Team Jacobs and her sister is Team Edward. To find out more about her, here is the entire interview.

3. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova is the new singer in the WTA circle amidst the famous ones like Vania King, Laura Robson etc.

4. This is the most craziest photo I have seen from the BNP Paribas Open Player's Party featuring Radwanska sisters and Caroline Wozniacki. Your thoughts?

5. During the WTA All Access Hour, players were asked few questions to test how far they know about their fellow players. Maria Sharapova had no clue about anyone.

Agnieszka Radwanska withdraws with elbow injury

BREAKING: Agnieszka Radwanska has withdrawn from BMW Malaysian Open.

She had to wait 2 days, due to rain, to complete her first round match . She had to play Round 1 match and Round 2 match on the same day to qualify for the quarterfinals. I had earlier written a blog post arguing it was not wise decision by Aga to participate in Malaysian Open. And now we are hearing about her withdrawal. This is exactly what I feared might happen. Now this puts Aga's chances at Indian Wells in a spot of bother.

Today's Ace

1. Voting opens for 2012 Fed Cup Heart Awards. The shortlist has been compiled by the Heart Award judging panel consisting of ITF President Francesco Ricci Bitti and a mixture of former players and members of the media.Voting runs from 1st March to 22nd March.You can vote for 1 player from each of the following four categories HERE

The nominations are

World Group/World Group II Zone: Daniela Hantuchova (SVK), Christina McHale (USA), Samantha Stosur (AUS) and Roberta Vinci (ITA)
Europe/Africa Zone: Sofia Arvidsson (SWE) and Elena Baltacha (GBR)
America Zone: Catalina Castano (COL) and Florencia Molinero (ARG)
Asia/Oceania Zone: Li Na (CHN) and Galina Voskoboeva (KAZ)

All four winners will receive a silver Baccarat bracelet and a cheque to be donated to their chosen charity.


2. Caroline Wozniacki was in spotlight all day long yesterday promoting her exhibition match against Maria Sharapova on Monday at Madison Garden Square, NY. She first appeared in "Today" show for NBC and then in "Good Day New York" show.

 

3. Heinz Guenthardt, who had worked with players like Steffi Graf, Ana Ivanovic and Andrea Petkovic,  will captain Swiss Fed Cup team. Guenthardt replaces Christiane Jolissaint, who stepped down after a 4-1 loss to Australia last month.

4. Couple of days back, it was announced that Martina Navratilova will be participating in Dance With The Stars show. Monica Seles, Martina Hingis and Justine Henin are the other tennis players who had participated in similar kind of dance shows.

Monica Seles on ABC:

Martina Hingis on BBC:

Justine Henin on a Belgian TV show:




5. 35 years old and still going strong as Paola Suárez joins the 500-doubles-match-wins group:

Paola Suárez, 35-year-old, announced her comeback to professional circuit in February 2012 sighting an Olympics gold medal in doubles. Paola, eight time grand slam champion, retired in 2007. On Wednesday, Paola registered her 500th doubles match career win in Acapulco.

Other players in this elite group are:

773 - Lisa Raymond
708 - Liezel Huber
656 - Cara Black
520 - Katarina Srebotnik
500 - Paola Suárez

Today's Ace

1. Caroline Wozniacki has touched down in New York for her exhibition match against Maria Sharapova on 5th, March at Madison Square Garden. She took sometime to watch a basketball match in New York.

2. Recently, a poll was conducted by "Sportsnet" on top 10 beautiful athletes. Can you guess the names of the tennis players who made into the list? Yes, it features Ana Ivanovic, Maria Sharapova and Rafeal Nadal.


3. After Sorana Cirstea had hits with Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi, it was Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova's turn to hit with Graf during 2012 Adidas training camp at Las Vegas.

4. Agnieszka Radwanska meets the legendary Jimmy Choo at the Malaysia Open players party. This time there is no talk about designing a special shoe (refer this for more details)

5. Feliciano Lopez does a typical Spaniard kind of stuff (visit here to know more) but in a losing cause. Yes, Lopez was defeated by Roger Federer in the second round of Dubai Tennis Championship.