Former world # 1 Martina Hingis completes her warm-up on clay by winning the Internazionali d’Italia, beating Dinara Safina 6-2 7-5 in today’s final. This prestigious Tier I tournament gives Hingis her 41st career title and her first one since Tokyo in 2002.

Having beaten Safina in straight sets in Indian Wells earlier this year, the Swiss Miss started confidently, winning the first 5 games by moving her opponent from side to side and creating lovely angles. The young Russian, who had an incredible run this week, appeared nervous to be in her first ever Tier I final and gifted Hingis with a number of unforced errors. She quickly narrowed it down to 5-2 with some aggressive play, but Hingis regrouped on the next game by holding her serve to 15. She won the first set 6-2 after 27 minutes when Safina hit a backhand long on her 2nd set point.

Hingis raced to a 2-0 lead in the 2nd set before Safina easily held her serve for 2-1. After winning 2 more games for a 4-1 cushion, Hingis looked to like she was in complete control of the match. But she began to miss a few shots - a poorly played drop shot and an easy forehand dumped into the net - and began to lose her composure. The Russian narrowed the gap to 4-3. At 6-2 5-3, Hingis held two match points, only to have them saved by the gutsy Safina with two booming serves. With new-found confidence, the Russian won the game and broke Hingis to even it out at 5-5. Hingis immediately broke back, but then saw herself down 0-40 on her serve. At this point it looked like the 2nd set was going into a tiebreaker. Never giving up, though, Hingis hit a couple of deep shots and unleashed a running forehand winner to bring it back to deuce. 2 points later, she saved another breakpoint with her trademark shot - a backhand down the line winner. She finally clinched the title on her 4th championship point when Safina failed to return a deep second serve.

This ended Dinara Safina’s impressive performance in Rome, where she defeated Kim Clijsters, Elena Dementieva and Svetlana Kuznetsova en route to the final. She will receive 210 points and $100,000 in prize money as the runner-up.

On the other hand, Martina Hingis defeated 5 seeded opponents consecutively for this title. This impressive victory gives her $196,900 and 300 points, which will push her ranking into the Top 15 after only 5 months since her comeback. This would mean that she is guaranteed to get at least a Top 16 seeding in the French Open, which begins the week of May 29. She takes the next week off for some much deserved rest, then heads to Paris for Roland Garros, the only Grand Slam thus far to elude her.

Martina Hingis thrashed Italian eight-seed Francesca Schiavone, 6-0, 7-5, to advance into the quarterfinal round of the Internazionali d’ Italia in Rome. With the win, Hingis’ career head-to-head wins improved to 3-0 against Francesca Schiavone.

The match saw Hingis played aggressively despite the fall she had during the first game when she slipped. Schiavone, though playing aggressively, could not find any way to catch Hingis off guard, losing the first set. Hingis had always some answers to whatever strategy Schiavone used. At the end of first set, Hingis won the first set at 6-0.

In the second set, an error-prone Hingis not only failed to break Schiavone twice, but also got her serve broken by the Italian, losing the first three games of the set to Schiavone. Then Hingis, won the fourth game, by playing as aggressive as she did to narrow don the score at 1-3. Just as Hingis was playing her best, Schiavone, raised her game to win the fifth game and led at 4-1. Not to be outdone, though, Hingis went on to win the next three games, holding her serve, breaking Schiavone’s serve and again, holding her serve to even the the score at 4-4. Schiavone, never gave up and found a way to win the next game and lead the scoreboard at 5-4. Hingis’ strategy of putting pressure on Schiavone proved useful as she won the next three games, and won the sedond set, 7-5.

She will play Flavia Penetta, whom she defeated in the the first round of the Berlin Open last week.

World number eight Elena Dementieva reached the quarterfinals of the Internazionali d’Italia on Thursday as she dismissed Germany’s Anna-Lena Groenefeld in three sets, 7-6, 3-6, 6-1.

After racing to a 5-2 lead early in the first set, Dementieva found herself levelled at 5 and had to dig deep to take the set to a decisive tiebreak. In the tiebreak Dementieva once again showed her quality when it comes to tiebreaks and eventually wrapped it up 7-1.

In the second set Groenfeld came out firing winners and her powerful strokes damaged Dementieva’s defences, who failed to hold, eventually leading to a 6-3 in favour of Groenefeld.

But showing she’s no beginner Dementieva brought up her superior game and in the third set the German was waxed 6-1.

Next up for Elena will be world number nineteen Dinara Safina. Safina recorded one of the wins of her career on Thursday as she dismantled Kim Clijsters in straight sets 6-4 and 7-6. Safina had never beaten Clijsters in their six previous meetings and had even failed to claim a single set in those six matches.

In the head-to-head series Dementieva and Safina are tied at one with Safina claiming the first match back in 2003 in Berlin when Dementieva retired during the third set. Dementieva claimed their second meeting in the US Open back in 2004 in the first round in three sets. Dementieva would go on to reach her second grand slam final.

On Other results on day four of the Internazionali d’Italia from Foro Italico include Martina Hingis’ trashing of home hope Francesca Schiavone 6-0, 7-5 and Jelena Jankovic’s win over an always difficult Katarina Srebotnik. Also making headlines is Romina Oprandi, playing in her home country, who completely razed Vera Zvonareva 6-0 and 6-1. Still to play are Venus Williams and Patty Schnyder.

Lindsay Davenport of Laguna Beach, California is not going to play at Roland Garros. The 29 year old announced she would not be playing at the French Open Grand Slam tournament that takes place from May 28. Davenport, who never won a clay court tournament, but won 51 WTA Tour titles, said she is suffering from a lower back injury.

“I am working as hard to come back as quickly as possible to the circuit”, Davenport said about her withdrawal.

“I haven’t recovered the full fitness that would allow me to compete to the best of my ability. I am very disappointed,” she said in her statement.

Davenport’s best result at Roland Garros was in 1998, when she reached the semi-finals. Clay courts have never been the favourite surface to play on for the tall former No.1 of the world.

The American, who won 3 grand slam titles already, will be replaced by No. 77 of the world Yuliana Fedak of Ukraine.

Beating a former French Open winner on your home soil and on the dirt must be quite a delicate experience. Due to this Roberta Vinci must be certainly very motivated going into her second round match versus Anastasia on Wednesday. This also means that Nastya has to play a lot better then she did on Monday in her three sets marathon against the rather inexperienced Azarenka. Vinci reached the second round by beating Sofia Arvidsson with a stunning 6-1 6-2 scoreline on Tuesday.

Roberta Vinci is currently ranked 52nd and has won 6 out of 15 matches so far this year. Her best result in the last couple of months was reaching the quarters in Doha where she beat Elena Likhovtseva in the opener. Last week she competed in Berlin but failed to progress when Maria Kirilenko beat her in straight sets in round one. Nastya has met Vinci twice. The Russian won their first encounter in 2001 on hardcourt in Toronto but lost on grass in 2004´s Eastbourne tourney.

The match will be the second one to be played on center court (thanks to Vinci) after a 1 pm local time (CEST) start. Eurosport 1 and 2 will broadcast the match live. Don ´t get to excited about it but whenever Eurosport 1 has broadcasted a Nastya match live during the last couple of months, the Russian turned out to lose it. Well probably just a stupid coincidence;)

Unfortunately Nastya and Elena Likhovtseva missed the second round as they lost to Nathalie Dechy/Anna-Lena Groenefeld in a weird three setter 6-3 1-6 6(4)-7 on Tuesday. The title winners from Warsaw had a 2-5 deficit in the decisive set but then out of a sudden, took four games in a row only to lose the momentum in the tiebreak.