Olympic gold medalist Elena Dementieva and former world No. 1 Amelie Mauresmo will meet in Friday’s quarterfinals here. Mauresmo is 8-5 in their lifetime series, but the Russian won their last meeting in Stuttgart last season. I am really excited to have a chance to see them here. I also really wanted to see Chakvetadze play, but she already lost her second round match.

Don’t forget to check out Amelie Mauresmo’s Luxembourg blog.  The 2008 Luxembourg titlist will make $35,000.

Roger Federer has passed Pete Sampras to become the biggest all-time money earner in men’s tennis. Federer raised his career earnings to $43,3 million  with a second-round win at the Madrid Masters tournament this week . Read more about Roger’s endorsements here and here.

Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev met yesterday with Russian national tennis team and their captain Shamil Tarpischev in Kremlin. This year’s Beijing Olympics champion Elena Dementieva has given her Olympic “gold” racket to President Medvedev as a gift. Would you give your Olympic racket to your President?

Elena Vesnina blogs about the experience.  According to her, all the players were very nervous initially but thanks to Marat Safin who told a couple of jokes to break the ice, they relaxed and greatly enjoyed the experience. They drank some tea, and the President thanked them for all their achievements.

Dinara Safina looks gorgeous. I am not saying anything about her brother

Dementieva thinking: “Just don’t sell it on Ebay, please.”

Medvedev thinking: “What the hell is this?”

Marat Safin is famous for both his tennis and dating skills. His new girlfriend is Nastya Osipova, a Russian pop singer. Here are some photos for you to grade his new girlfriend:-)

See more photos here.

I watched the first set of Serena’s match with Li Na at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart . She took it 6-0. So prematurely deciding the outcome of the match, I changed the channel to CNN with a hope to watch something more amusing (aka something said or done by the U.S. vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin). Needless to say, I was quite surprised to read this final scoreline 6-0, 1-6, 4-6. Jelena Jankovic will take over her No.1 ranking next week. Read more on the match at Women’s Tennis Blog.