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Venus Williams of the USA became only the second woman in the history of the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships to defend the title when she defeated fourth seed Victoria Azarenka of Belarus 6-3, 7-5. Justine Henin is the other woman who was able to defend her title, winning in 2006 and 2007.

Martina Hingis apparently can’t give it up. Perhaps it is true with tennis as in other areas: You can take the girl out of tennis, but you can’t take the tennis out of the girl.

Serena Williams of the USA holds her 2nd straight Australian Open championship trophy after defeating a determined Justine Henin of Belgium. In doing so, Williams, ranked No 1 in the world, also broke the even year curse at the Australian Open. She has not been able to advance past the Quarterfinals in even years while winning four straight in the odd years, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009.

It has come down to a battle between unseeded Justine Henin fresh out of retirement and playing in her first Grand Slam tournament since losing in the Quarterfinals of the Australian Open in 2008 and world No. 1, Serena Williams.

Henin hardly broke a sweat as she downed unseeded Jie Zheng of China in her Semifinal match. Henin was just too powerful from everywhere on the court, finishing off her opponent 6-1, 6-0.

The Semifinals for the 2010 Australian Open have been set, pitting No. 1 Serena Williams of the USA against No. 16 Na Li of China. Williams leads their head-to-head match-ups 3-1. This is William’s 4th appearance in the Semifinals of the Australian Open. Each time she made the Semifinals, she has gone on to win the championship. This will be Na Li’s first appearance in the Semifinals of any Grand Slam, and was only her 3rd appearance in a Quarterfinal.

History is in the making as unseeded, 35th ranked Jie Zheng has become the first Chinese woman to reach the Semifinals of the Australian Open. She won an impressive straight-sets victory over Russia’s 58th ranked giant-killer Maria Kirilenko in the Quarterfinals of the 2010 Australian Open, 6-1, 6-3.

The 26-year-old Zheng’s service returns were fierce in the first set, breaking Kirilenko in the 4th game and then closing out the set 6-1. In the second set, Zheng pulled out to a 2-0 lead, followed by a marathon sixth game where Zheng saved several break points in a strong challenge from Kirilenko, wrapping up the 2nd set 6-3 in a match time of 85 minutes.

Nadia Petrova is looking like the real deal after eliminating No. 3 seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova in an all Russian match at the 2010 Australian Open. It took three sets, but Petrova got the job done, 6-3, 3-6, 6-1.

Petrova picked up where she left off in her last match when she blasted past Kim Clijsters. In this 4th round match, Petrova took the first set from Kuznetsova 6-3. Kuznetsova battled back winning the 2nd set 6-3 to level the match at one set all. Kuznetsova seemed to have the momentum. But Petrova picked up her game and Kuznetsova committed too many unforced errors and was broken three times in the final set. Petrova won that deciding set 6-1.

The much anticipated Quarterfinal between Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin will not be happening, thanks to the aggressive play of Nadia Petrova, and a rather poor performance on the part of Clijsters. Petrova, seeded No. 19 beat the No. 15 seeded Clijsters in straight sets, 6-0, 6-1 in their third round match.

Clijsters had 26 unforced errors compared to just 10 by Petrova in Clijsters’ worst Australian Open outing since her 2000 debut. Petrova had 15 winners compared to just 5 for Clijsters. The first set took only 18 minutes and Clijsters won only five points.

Alona Bondarenko had too much for Jelena Jankovic to handle in their 3rd round match up today. Bondarenko, seeded 31, pulled a huge upset over the 8th seeded Jankovic, winning in straight sets 6-2, 6-3. It was the first time Bondarenko has beaten Jankovic in 10 meetings between the two. Bondarenko had managed to take only one set against Jankovic in their previous nine matches. This was a great time to break the drought against Jankovic and is perhaps the biggest win of Bondarenko’s career.

Justine Henin had her toughest match yet in the first Grand Slam since coming out of retirement, surviving a scare in a close 3-set match against No. 27 ranked Alisa Kleybanova.

In the 3rd round match, Kleybanova won the first set 6-3. She then broke Henin to go up 3-1 in the 2nd set before Henin went on a run winning 8 of 9 games to take the second set 6-4 and go up 3-0 in the 3rd set. Kleybanova fought back winning her serve, then breaking Henin to get back on serve 3-2. Henin then took the next three games to win the 3rd set 6-3.