Players from Russia had more than twice as many Top 100 players in the 2009 year-end rankings as the second-place country and won more than twice as many Tour singles titles as the second-place country.

I remember Kim Clijsters’ observation when she returned to the Tour: "A lot of Russian is being spoken in the locker room."

Players Ranked in 2009 Year-End Top 100 (As of November 9, 2009)

Russia: 15
Czech Republic: 6
France: 6
Germany: 6
Italy: 6
United States: 5
Romania: 4
Spain: 4
Belarus: 3
Belgium: 3
China: 3
England: 3
Slovakia: 3
Switzerland: 3
Ukraine: 3
Australia: 2
Austria: 2
Chinese Taipei: 2
Croatia: 2
Hungary: 2
Japan: 2
Poland: 2
Serbia: 2
Argentina: 1
Bulgaria: 1
Canada: 1
Denmark: 1
Estonia: 1
India: 1
Israel: 1
Kazakhstan: 1
Latvia: 1
Slovenia: 1
Uzbekistan: 1

Additional info: The United States has the record with six players in the year-end Top 10 in 1981, 1982 and 1983.

Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Singles Titles in 2009

Russia: 13
France: 5
United States: 5
Belarus: 4
Italy: 4
Denmark: 3
Spain: 3
Belgium: 2
Israel: 2
Germany: 2
Hungary: 2
Serbia: 2
Australia: 1
Austria: 1
Czech Republic: 1
Japan: 1
Romania: 1
Slovakia: 1
Switzerland: 1
Thailand: 1

Additional info: Russians won eight of the 19 Premier-level events in 2009, while no other country captured more than two Premier titles. (photos: Ralf Reinecke, Elisa)

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Teerin would like to have been able to include more memorable situations, but YouTube videos can't be more than 10 minutes long. Which WTA moments would you add to Teerin's Top 10? I would include the emotional retirement of Ai Sugiyama and also, I would put Kim Clijsters' US Open win on top of the list.

Teerin, thank you so much for your continuous and active support of Women's Tennis Blog.

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The Russian is the fifth Top 10 player to join the Sydney field after No.1 Serena Williams, No.5 and defending champion Elena Dementieva, No.4 Caroline Wozniacki and No.7 Victoria Azarenka.

It will be Kuznetsova’s fifth straight participation at the event. In 2008 she was runner-up to then world No.1 Justine Henin. (source: Medibank International Sydney, photo by our reader Jacob)

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Virginia Ruano Pascual has retired from tennis at the age of 36. The Spaniard won 42 doubles titles and three singles titles during her career on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.

Ruano Pascual has 10 Grand Slam doubles titles to her name, including six French Open ones. Eight of those Grand Slam titles she won paired with Paola Suarez of Argentina, one with countrywoman Anabel Medina Garrigues in 2008, and one is a mixed doubles title she won partnered with Thomas Carbonell in 2000.

The three singles titles Ruano Pascual claimed on the WTA Tour came in Tashkent (2003), Budapest (1998) and Cardiff (1997).

Ruano Pascual's highest ranking in doubles was No.1 and in singles No.28. (source: Women Who Serve)

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The 22-year-old Ivanovic finished the 2009 season prior to the China Open, in the beginning of October, and now she has started practicing for her future challenges.

I've already started training again, to be ready for the new season. At the moment it's just fitness, but tennis will start next week, with Sven.

There's not much else to say at the moment. Always when I begin my off-season training the focus is on fitness, then I gradually move onto tennis, and by the end of the training block tennis is of course the main focus.

I had a good break. It was just what I needed!

(photo via Sony Ericsson WTA Tour)

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In her latest diary entry on her new official website, the Russian is sharing details about the procedure and her future plans.

All seem to be fine; no pain in my leg so far but certainly there is some inconvenience.

The surgery was done in one of Rotterdam’s clinics, so on Thursday I had to move to Amsterdam but I was picked up and transported by the car. At present I walk on crutches. The operation was performed by a reputed surgeon Nick Van Dyke who operated on many football players and now helps Cristiano Ronaldo.

Zvonareva will stay in Amsterdam for two weeks. Afterwards, she will travel to Florida to practice.

The 25-year-old is hoping to be ready for the Australian Open. (photo: chascow)

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Wickmayer received a one-year ban – the 20-year-old never skipped a test or tested positive but she failed to report her whereabouts on three occasions and her career is severely impacted now.

"The indispensable fight against doping is not the issue here. The problem is the lack of proportionality of certain measures," said Wickmayer's lawyer Jean-Louis Dupont.

Wickmayer is already appealing her suspension before the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport. (source: The Associated Press, photo: emmett.hume)

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Kim Clijsters will grace the cover of the UK's most widely read women's magazine YOU, which will hit stands November 22.

Clijsters’ shared the first of five sneak previews of the photo shoot on her YouTube channel. You can see a screenshot here; for the video follow this link.

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Sharapova started the season late, because of her career-threatening shoulder injury, playing her first match of 2009 at the BNP Paribas Open in March. She was introducing herself to competitive tennis slowly, playing doubles first, but her style had to be spot-on from the very beginning, and it was.

People argued that Sharapova’s Roland Garros dress had too much fabric, but I liked it, and I especially favored the blue color against the red clay.

The Wimbledon dress was neat and elegant.

Later in the season Sharapova started wearing a headband, which wasn’t welcomed by the majority of tennis audience. I never really mind it. Maria can get away with a lot of things.

Of course, for the US Open there were two dresses – for day and night.

What’s your favorite dress Sharapova wore in 2009? I like the US Open night dress the most – it's simple, the cut is nice, and I like the combination of black and silver.

Impressively, this is the third consecutive year Women’s Tennis Blog is featuring a revision of Sharapova’s Nike outfits. I'm sure you would like to remind yourselves of what the Russian was wearing on court in 2007 and 2008. Do you maybe think her style was better in the past? (photos: Maria Sharapova's official website, Ralf Reinecke, Stephane Martinache)

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Here’s the full transcript of Wickmayer’s presser at the Koning Boudewijn Stadium in Brussels, Belgium.

Welcome,

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who is present here today. It is extremely important for me to be able to tell my story.

- November and December 2008, I was training in Switzerland.

- In January 2009, I was in Australia to prepare myself for the Australian Open.

- Because of this, all of the letters that were sent to my house that had to be signed for, I was unable to receive and were returned to sender.

- On February 18, 2009 I went online and Googled the general email address of the doping agency, and sent them and email to ask for information as I had heard several players talk about the new anti doping program.

- On February 19, 2009, I received an email back, which included a login and did not include any information about the one failed update I had already missed, without knowing that this system even exists, even though all the letters that I had to sign for upon receipt and were sent back to the Flemish Anti-Doping Agency, meaning that they did know that I never received them.

- After this email, I left for the United States for 7 weeks and have tried numerous times to sign on to the system with the login details that they provided to me, which failed time after time.

- In early April, I then sent an email myself again to notify them that I could not get into the system.

- After the weekend, their reply to me was simply that there was a problem with my login and that they have reset this so I can log in with a new login into the system. There was no indication in this email that I now had already had two failures to update behind my name, even though I had not even logged into the system once.

- Following their reply to me and using the new login information, I mistakenly completed the online whereabouts details wrong, as I did not know that you could not select the option ‘competition’ and instead had to select the option "permanent residence", which I had no idea about.

- In June, I then called Mr. De Bruyn myself to ask him information as to how top complete the wherabouts correctly. I got the information that day for the first. This conversation took place after my 3rd missed update had already happened, even though I had not received any word about this.

- From that day on, my WADA has always been updated correctly and I have been tested out of competition at home.

- At the end of June it was that the Belgian Tennis Federation was notified about the situation. They notified my father about this by email.

Consequences for my career:

- As a result of this, I am being punished extremely hard. I will lose my ranking and will have to start again from 0. I will fight back but there is nothing that guarantees me that I will return to the same ranking.

- Throughout the year, I have had numerous doping test, and I have never failed or refused one.

- I have never had any education or information about it.

- The system is needed and I find it a good idea but it should happen in a more personal manner.

- Tennis players travel a lot so these updates are sometimes very difficult to do.

We are going to appeal this ruling and will do everything we can to get it overturned. If this decision is not overturned and I am not able to compete for a year, I am going to do everything I can to be back at the end of the year even stronger. I am a fighter and won’t give up.

I would also like to thank my team, my fans, and anyone else who have supported me so intensely. Words can not explain how much that support means to me.

(source: HCFoo's Tennis Blog, photo via emmett.hume)

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