Two-time Grand Slam champion Victoria Azarenka will no longer bite her tongue or try to fit into any media-trained 'image' as she makes her way on the tennis tour.
World number one Serena Williams survived a mid-match meltdown to beat Czech Lucie Safarova 6-3, 6-7(2), 6-2 to win the French Open on Saturday, her 20th Grand Slam singles trophy.
Factbox on Rafael Nadal's French Open final wins
Images from Tuesday's action at the Australian Open.
American tennis player Serena Williams is all set to make her comeback at the Australian Open, organisers confirmed.
Images from Sunday's action at the Australian Open.
Spain's Rafael Nadal was at his dominant best against Pablo Carreno Busta on Saturday, brushing aside his compatriot 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 to move into the fourth round at the Australian Open. Images from Day 6 of the Australian Open at Melbourne Park on Saturday.
Images from Day 2 of the 2022 Australian Open in Melbourne on Tuesday.
Sharad Pawar reckons that the NCP has value as a united, going concern, not as a gaggle of leaders in search of followers, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
The peak remains tantalisingly close for Serena Williams but negotiating the final incline to a record-equalling 22nd Grand Slam singles title is proving the trickiest of all.
amiliar names, however, are tipped to take off with the winners' trophies. The following is a list of talking points at the Australian Open:
With her post-pregnancy comeback, the tennis champ is shattering stereotypes and inspiring women everywhere.
Challengers to Serena Williams' throne have proved as fickle as a Paris spring and as the year's second grand slam starts the veteran American is again seemingly in a league of her own. The 34-year-old's charge to overhaul Margaret Court's record 24 grand slam singles titles may have stalled since she chalked up major number 21 at last year's Wimbledon. But after fine-tuning her claycourt game by winning last week's Italian Open she will begin the defence of her French Open title as the strong favourite. With twice French Open champion Maria Sharapova suspended pending the findings of an anti-doping hearing after she tested positive for Meldonium in Australia this year, the list of players capable of toppling a fully firing Williams is short.
Austria's Dominic Thiem strained every sinew trying to cling on to the 32-year-old Spaniard and at times even gained a precarious foothold in his first Grand Slam final. But it ultimately proved a futile mission as, just like in all but two of Nadal's previous 87 matches here, the relentless Spaniard proved insurmountable, winning 6-4, 6-3, 6-2.
Serena Williams is a five-times Wimbledon champion but the American has surprisingly declared that she has "never really liked grass".
Images from Day 3 of the 2022 Australian Open in Melbourne on Wednesday.
India's star tennis player Sania Mirza says she has achieved everything in her path-breaking career and has 'nothing to prove' in her second innings, which is likely to begin by January 2020.
It will be 'Mother's Day' on Wimbledon's Centre Court on Monday when Serena Williams takes on fellow mum Evgeniya Rodina for a place in the quarter-finals of the grasscourt major.
Serena Williams' behaviour in Saturday's US Open final divided the tennis world after she called the chair umpire a "liar" and a "thief" and said he treated her differently than male players during her loss to Naomi Osaka.
Serena Williams weathered an early challenge from Russian Vera Zvonareva before the former World No 2 crumbled to lose 7-5, 6-0 in the second round of the Australian Open on Thursday.
IMAGES from Day 4 of the Australian Open in Melbourne, on Thursday.
Serena Williams retained her US Open crown by holding off a battling Victoria Azarenka of Belarus 7-5, 6-7(6), 6-1 in a windblown final at the Arthur Ashe stadium on Sunday.
Images from Day 6 of the Australian Open in Melbourne, on Saturday.
Serena Williams is on the brink of the grandest achievement in tennis, the single season Grand Slam, and even the leading men at the US Open championships starting on Monday are cheering her on.
Defending champion Angelique Kerber battled her nerves and blew a match point in the second set before finally overcoming Lesia Tsurenko 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 to reach the second round.
Serena Williams is third on the list of female Grand Slam title winners. She is one of only five women, after Maureen Connolly, Margaret Court, Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf, to hold all four Grand Slam titles at same time.
Serena Williams beat her sister Venus 6-4, 6-4 in the Australian Open final on Saturday to win her 23rd grand slam singles title and become the most successful tennis player in the open era.
Seven-time champion Williams had been bidding to claim a record-equalling 24th Grand Slam crown but made too many errors as Kerber ran out a comfortable winner in the final.
Twelve months on from making the most bizarre of exits from Wimbledon, drama queen Serena Williams will be back at the All England Club next week eager to complete the "Serena Slam".
It was Kristyna's first win over a top-five ranked player and she will go on to play fellow Czech Barbora Strycova in the quarter-finals.
Novak Djokovic and Rogerer Federer loom over Melbourne Park for the year's opening Grand Slam as favourites for the Australian Open as questions remain as to whether one of Generation Next could finally end their stranglehold.
Images from Day 2 of the French Open matches played at Roland Garros on Monday
Germany's experienced Angelique Kerber stands in the way of the 36-year-old American and an eighth, and arguably most impressive, All England Club singles crown which would see her match Margaret Court's all-time record of 24 Grand Slam titles.
Images from Day 4 of the Australian Open in Melbourne on Thursday.
Williams, a record 23-times Grand Slam champion, will be returning to the All England Club for the first time since giving birth to her daughter last September.
Serena Williams had been a vulnerable conqueror at this year's majors, living dangerously and dicing with defeat on numerous occasions as she tried to become only the fourth woman to complete the calendar Grand Slam.
Serena Williams enters the Australian Open as a strong favourite to lift the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup but is all too aware that a sixth Melbourne Park title has now eluded her for five years.
From potential dark horses to former champions, here are the players who were knocked out of the Australian Open on Thursday
List of Wimbledon women's singles champions:
Ailing knees, Father Time and even a resurgent Victoria Azarenka stand in the way of Serena Williams clinching her seventh Australian Open title and giving her one more shot at an achievement that would cap her storied career.
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