Vanity Fair magazine did a shoot with 31 players who are in the U.S. Open. There’s a quite a nice variety of players: number one seed Caroline Wozniacki, qualifier cutie Ryan Harrison, wheelchair-player Esther Vergeer, twitter favourite Andrea Petkovic, the boring as ever Bryan Brothers, amongst others. You can check out the whole thing here.

Now we have finished the serious part of the post, let’s play a game.

One of these players is photogenic. The other is not. Guess who.

(Suggestion thanks to Kirilicious)

Vika must be every tennis parent’s living nightmare. Playing doubles with her turns out to be the worst influence on cute little Maria Kirilenko. Meanwhile, Team Vikiri is into the Cincinnati semifinals. You win some, you lose some, right?

You know, I’m sure Daniela is a very nice girl. In fact, I’ve heard from from a friend who has interviewed her that she’s a doll. Polite, calm girl. So I ask myself, what is such a nice girl doing ruining people’s lives? Why must she cockblock all epic duos in life? And, most importantly, why does she hate me?

It all started a while ago with the Sports Illustrated shoot with Maria Kirilenko, Tatiana Golovin and The Life Ruiner. I was pretty excited about this line-up. I love Kiri. I love Tati. They both make me laugh when trying to be hot. They make me go ‘LOLLL THIS SPORT U GUISE ♥’ and I like going ‘LOLLL THIS SPORT U GUISE ♥’. I was expecting a picture of them together.

But I got this.

Here, let me show you where it all went wrong:

But I got over that. You know, I’m sure she wasn’t like ‘Hey, let me stand between Kiri and Tati and ruin all possible Russian lolz that could happen to make Fierce Tennis miserable’. Like, she wasn’t, was she?

Time passed. There were other Russian lolz to care about. It was announced, in Stanford, that Sharapova would play doubles with Wicky. That was one big Russian lolz. I was excited. I posted about it. But then Wicky tweeted that Wickypova wouldn’t happen. My heart was broken. What was I supposed to do with my life?

Today the Stanford doubles draw came out. Why should I care? There was no Team Angry Giants. But then something caught my attention, and by something I mean people going ‘OMG!!!!!!!!’ on my Ttwitter timeline. Fierce Tennis‘ official girlcrush, Victoria Azarenka, would play doubles with Kiri. Finally! Another doubles team I could support. And who did they drew on the first round? Wicky (!!!!!) and….. Daniela Hantuchova.

I don’t think I need to get into how epic it would have been Wickypova playing against Vika/Kiri. I’m sure you’ll be able to tell by the amount of weeping I’ve done. Hint: A LOT. Daniela Hantuchova, you’re playing with fire here. Ask Federer how it feels to be on my shit list. Awful, I’ll bet he says. My sources tell him he cries himself to sleep every night because of it. Yeah, girl, I can be a bully.

ALL THESE LADIES WON. AND IT WAS EPIC.

And, damn, you guys, the matches were all hard (Sam‘s not so much, but for a moment there, when she lost the 1st, I was scared) — all three-setters.

Lena played some spectacular shit tennis and had to come down from a set down and then from a break drown on the 3rd set to defeat CanWoz. When Kiri started serving for the match, we got suicidal but then she ended up snagging the 3rd set 6-4. And Wicky, well, they didn’t have a stream for Wicky but I imagine if it took her 32 games to defeat mommy!Bammer, then it mustn’t have been pretty. Still, a win is a win.

But that wasn’t all. We had BONUS WINNERS. Caro pushed push baby Dulgheru and Rrrrrrrafa, well, Rafa was Rafa. We still have Russian BBs Pavs and Pivs (who came from qualies to upset Australian Open semifinalist Zheng) alive in the third round. Let’s enjoy this little piece of sunshine and happiness upon us — goodness knows it will be squashed by JJ or the Williams soon.

Pretty boy fyt:

Delish.

Q. How would you describe your sense of confidence right now?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: Uhm, well, I’m leaving on Monday of the first week, so that explains a lot.

On the first Rod Laver Arena match of the tournament, Maria Kirilenko defeated former champion Maria Sharapova in 3 hours and 22 minutes. It was hardly what one would call a quality match: Sharapova alone had 77 unforced errors and 11 double faults. In the end, it was exciting, it was an upset, everyone likes seeing seeds falling, but, most importantly, it was nice to Kiri (who had a terrible season last year) start this one with such a good kick. Kuddos, tiny Kiri.

Now, there’s something I need to talk before I go in the match (do I ever do that?): Sharapova’s dress. I’ll miss it. It’s a shame it’s leaving so early. I do agree with most of you that think it’s over the top — it is. But the thing is, in the last few seasons, “tennis fashion” should have been stripped of the word “fashion”. It was stuck in the commonplace so badly that all we had was revamped colours for athletic outfits. Now, this? (Whatever this is.) Is a proper design. With multilayers (maybe a little less colour would have been ace) and work. Kiri seems to agree it’s a good dress.

Q. What did you think of Maria’s outfit or costume? Do you ever pay attention to things like that?

MARIA KIRILENKO: It was blue, I think, like POWERade. I mean, yeah, what can I say? Was good dress. She always have a nice dresses. I think I always have a nice dresses, as well.

Was good dress. Just what I said. Shame she’s colourblind.

Q. Is it possible I read on your lips vamos sometimes when you do a point, or not?

MARIA KIRILENKO: Yes, because I’m practicing in Spain, in Valencia, and all the guys, coaches, they always saying vamos. That’s why I think say instead of say, Come on, I said, Vamos.

Bless. (Now this is the part where someone throws rocks me at me for being so biased — when Sharapova screams ‘Vamos’, it’s annoying. When Kiri does it, it’s ‘Look how cute bb Kiri! *pat pat* Here, Kiri, have a cookie!’)

Q. You put your fingers to your lips late in the match. Was that to get the crowd to quieten down?

MARIA KIRILENKO: It’s unbelievable. I got so many questions in the locker room, in the players’ lounge. What did you do? What does it mean? I don’t know. Everyone can think what does that mean.

Normally, it was for me actually, that everything is calm, you know. Because, you know, of course it’s a great win, but it’s only the first round I pass. It’s nothing big happens actually.

What?

Q. Do you know that usually Arshavin does the same when he kicks the goal?

MARIA KIRILENKO: Yeah, that’s true. That’s what Kuznetsova just told me. Because she thinking that I was watching Arshavin before the match.

But that’s not it. I said, No, I didn’t watch.

Is Kuznetsova an Arsenal fan? Does she love Arshavin as much as I do? Maybe we should be friends.

And to finish this off. How did that feel, Kiri?

Yup, thought so. Get it! She will now play Austrian Yvonne Meusburger that defeated Swiss Timea Bacsinszky in the first round.

I say, print that card out and hand it to those you love.

The TEAM RUSSIA x TEAM ASIA exhibition in Malasyia came to an end yesterday. Team Russia (formed by Elena Dementieva and Maria Kirilenko) kicked ass defeated Team Asia (Jie Zheng and Sania Mirza). The Russians won both singles and the doubles tie, ending the exho with a perfect 3-0. They were kickass all right.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t even a stream available for the matches. The exhibitions so far are doing a terrible job at keeping us entertained. At least there are cute pictures of them coming out. E.g. Kiri swims with dolphins.

(Pictures via fireflydestinations)

The good:

Maria Kirilenko and Elena Vesnina

The bad:

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova

(And I actually like the sneakers.)

The ugly:

Vera Zvonareva

(Oh Bepa, did they pay you to wear that shirt? How much? A billion dollars???)

We started Kremlin Cup with three players fighting for the last spot at the year end championships (YEC) in Doha: Vera Zvonareva, Jelena Jankovic and Agnieszka Radwanska. Today, Russian Maria Kirilenko already took out one of the girls from the competition, poor baby Aga, with a double 6-3.

It’s the end of the season. Most of the players are exhausted. If not physically, then mentally. Aga had her leg and wrist taped up. Last week, there was her shoulder too. Even if she is/was badly injured, the last thing I’m going to do is take out Maria’s credit. It’s the second time in a row she defeats the Polish girl. The last one was in this year’s U.S. Open second round. With this win, it’s the first Maria makes the second round in her home tournament. See how I’m positive about one of my favourite not qualifying for Doha? Envy my graciousness.

Here below, we have a Maria interview in Russian for the website Championat. Being obviously fluent in the language, this is how much I managed to understand (reading from the story’s title): “I’m not Kournikova”, she said. Well, Maria, aren’t we glad we settled that?

Wake up. Stretch.

Giggle a bit.

Be nice a girl to some cute kids.

Do that thing called “play tennis”.

Hang out with some random hot chick.

More giggles!

Kiddy time part two.

More hot chicks!

Giggle giggle.

Stretch again.

Check Fierce Tennis.

Sleep.