Maria Sharapova is looking to get herself back to the level of play that once had her routinely competing and winning Grand Slam title. Sharapova is hoping a solid performance at the Cincinnati Women’s Open can help raise her game. The 23-year-old has only one tournament win this year (The Cellular South Cup) and hasn’t won a Grand Slam since her 2008 Australian Open victory. The Russian is currently ranked the 15th best female tennis player in the world. Sharapova was surprisingly bounced from the first round of the Australian Open this past January. Her performances at the French Open (3rd round exit) and Wimbledon (4th round exit) have given her some confidence back. Sharapova faces up-and-coming German tennis star Andrea Petkovic in the second round in Cincinnati. It will be the first time the two tennis players have faced each other professionally.

In the Women’s Wimbledon final, Serena Williams will face a very unlikely opponent in Vera Zvonareva. The Russian has been better known for her on the court antics than for winning tournaments. Nevertheless, the 25-year-old Russian defeated fellow underdog Tsvetana Pironkova in the semifinals yesterday convincingly, setting herself up for the world #1 women’s tennis player. Williams defeated her sister Venus in last year’s final for her fourth Wimbledon title and can capture her second Grand Slam of the year with a win on Saturday. Serena has yet to lost a set thus far in the entire tournament, but Zvonareva has played the American tough in the past. Will the calm, intelligent Zvonareva show up in her first Grand Slam final or will the “Crybaby” antics the Russian tennis player is known for rule the day? We’ll find out this weekend at the All England Club.

The tennis world will firmly turn its attention to Paris, French on Sunday as the best players in the world compete in the second grand slam of the year. On the Men’s side, Roger Federer will make his French Open title defense coming off a lose earlier this month to adversary Rafael Nadal at the Mutua Madrilena Madrid Open. Rog reigned supreme at The Australian Open, but many are looking to Nadal to make a play for his first Grand Slam of the year. Jo-Wilfred Tsonga will have the home crowd behind him as the only Frenchmen currently in the APT Top 10. On the ladies’ end, world #5 Svetlana Kuznetsova claimed the top prize in 2009 at Roland Garros, dispatching fellow Russian Dinara Safina. Serena Williams would love to win her second Grand Slam of the year after her brilliant performance in Melbourne this past January. Having only won once (1999) at Roland Garros, The French Open has been the most elusive of the Grand Slams for Williams. We shall see if Serena can continue her dominance over the sport this week in Paris.

At the Sony Ericsson Open this past weekend Andy Roddick was champion in what was his first Masters 1000 tournament title in four years. Roddick has long been a victim to Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal’s dominance over the sport in recent times, so the victory at the “Miami Masters” was a huge mental victory for the American. In the semifinals, Roddick’s aggression was too much for six-time Grand Slam winner Nadal. Charging the net multiple times during the match, Roddick kept Nadal from getting comfortable throughout the entire match. Superstar Federer also fell in the semifinals to Czech 24-year-old Tomas Berdych. In the final, Roddick bombarded Berdych with his famed power serve and looked superior throughout the entire match. No one has a better record so far this season than Andy Roddick, as the world #7 is 28-4 in 2010. Perhaps this is the year that Andy Roddick finally wins his second Grand Slam. His first opportunity this year will be at Wimbledon on June 21st.  

The #2 ranked tennis player on the ATP Tour, Novak Djokovic, is into the finals in Dubai after defeating Marcos Baghdatis. The Serbian national won the tournament last year over David Ferrer. Djokovic’s in form serve was the difference maker against Baghdatis in what was a closely played match. Despite only being 22-years-old Djokovic is at the top of the sport. In 2008, Djokovic defeated Roger Federer in the semi-finals of the Australian Open and winning his first Grand Slam Title in the final against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Having played in 97 matches in 2009 and winning five titles, Djokovic might be the hardest worker in all of professional tennis. The last few years stars like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, and Andy Roddick had Djokovic’s last year, but a win in Dubai could get the promising star of to great start to the season.

Seventy four years have passed since a British tennis player has won a tennis major, but Andy Murray might just be the man to break the curse as he advanced to the finals of the Australian Open on Thursday in Melbourne. Defeating Croatia’s Marin Cilic in dominant fashion, the Scotsman let out a ferocious roar after notching the winning point.

Should Roger Federer defeat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the other semi-final we’ll be in for a rematch of the 2008 US Open where Federer defeated Murray in the Scot’s only other major final. Murry, the #4 ranked player in the world has become a mega-star in the United Kingdom as he has consistently risen through the rankings in years past. From what he’s shown so far in his young career many tennis experts have said it’s only a matter of time until he wins a major. His time may come soon as all of Britain will be on the edge of their seats on Sunday when Andy Murray takes a swing at history.

Even though it’s not evening yet, the tennis match in Australia that determined the Medibank International’s winner this year has been played. On Friday evening, Elena Dementieva beat out Serena Williams in the finals! And Serena didn’t threaten anyone at all. The winner did a very nice job in stopping Williams, who has been able to push other players beyond their ability. She has won Grand Slams. At the end of the year, the match went the other way, with Williams winning. Elena was ready to play, though, and knew that she had to bring it. In fact, Williams hardly showed up and Dementieva took advantage of it. All of these different tournaments at the moment are setting up the Australian Open which begins in about a week. Are you ready to see this year’s first Grand Slam? It’s not far away yet, so get ready!

Caroline Wozniacki is one of the top female players in the world right now and it’s very entertaining to watch her work on her serving. While she’s young and new to the professional leagues, we have begun to see her develop into a great player. Maybe not a Williams sisters level player but  a quality player who will be in contention for years to come. This growth doesn’t necessarily come without some difficulty, though. She lost in the Sydney Open this weekend, dropping to Li Na in 3 sets. Many of the main competitors think of the Sydney Open as the opening tournament, meant to brush off the cobwebs and get back into tournament level. Maybe Woz is preparing for a huge performance in the Australian open in a couple of weeks. We can only hope.

Ernests Gulbis gave Roger Federer a bit of a scare just the other day when they competed in Qatar. Federer won 6-2 4-6 6-4 but it there were some people biting their fingernails pretty hard, it would seem. Federer is really concerned about getting back into his top level of play, but he has underachieved it for a long time. He wants to get a good big win to start out the season. This might propel him towards an Australian Open win in a couple weeks. He will probably have a tough competitor in Nadal again this year, as it appears that they will both be healthy this year. Nadal has been hard to figure for the last half year or so, because he’s been close to the top of the rankings, but he hasn’t been able to play very much. Then when he does, he underperforms. But both of them got a good start to their season this year, so we’ll see what happens next!

UPDATE: Federer was ousted by Davydenko just a few minutes ago, so it wasn’t the glowing start that he had been hoping for, but it was worthwhile.

It’s been awhile since we’ve had real tennis news to talk about. Dinara Safina is making the headlines right now, because she says that she’s finally feeling better again. She had some big troubles with her lower back towards the end of the 2009 season, leaving her unable to play certain events. She says that she’s ready to play and hopes that she’ll be able to dash back into the lead of the ladies leaderboard once again. She’s still at #1, I believe, but she’s going to need to produce for real in order to make people believe that it was worthwhile. She says she’s rested and ready. She is concerned about the Australian weather, because it’s so hot this time of year, since it’s summer down there. But hopefully the first Australian tournaments can get her a good start to an amazing year.