TENNIS in DEPTH.

Ana Ivanovic showed a welcome and increasingly rare glimpse of form with a 6-3 6-2 win over Alisa Kleybanova.

The win was particularly sweet for Ivanovic as it was Kleybanova who dumped her out of this year’s French Open.

“I played well,” said Ana. “I moved and served well. I didn’t make many mistakes.

“I am really happy to see the things that we have worked on the past month. I am happy with the way I played today.

“I think the biggest thing today was my fitness. I was getting to every ball and managed keep the rallies going so I didn’t have to pull trigger too early.

Dinara Safina’s woes continued as she lost again to veteran Kimiko Date Krumm at the Bank of the West Classic.

The former world number one, now down at 35 in the rankings and a wild card in the Stanford tournament, served for the match in the second set before crashing to lose 4-6 7-6 (7/0) 6-2 to the 39-year-old Japanese.

Date Krumm had also beaten Safina in the first round of the French Open.

The Russian has now lost her last six matches on ther WTA Tour.

Date Krumm will face more Russian opposition in the second round when she meets Elena Dementieva.

There were also wins for Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova, who saw off Hilary Barte of the United States 6-2 6-2, and Olga Govortsova, who had things even easier with a 6-1 6-1 win dismissal of Alla Kudryavtseva.

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Roger Federer is to work with coach Paul Annacone for a “test period” as the 16-time Grand Slam champion looks to get back to winning ways.

The Swiss will team up with Annacone as the American works out the remainder of his contract as men’s head coach at the Lawn Tennis Association until November.

Federer has slipped to third in the rankings after losing in the quarter-finals of the last two Grand Slams.

Annacone is a former coach to Pete Sampras and Tim Henman.

“I’ve been looking to add someone to my team and I’ve decided to spend some days with Paul Annacone,” Federer told his website.

“As Paul winds down his responsibilities working for the Lawn Tennis Association, we will explore our relationship through this test period.

“Paul will work alongside my existing team and I am excited to learn from his experiences.”

Federer, 28, has won Wimbledon six times, the US Open five times, the French Open once, and sealed his fourth Australian title earlier this year.

But his quarter-final defeat by Tomas Berdych at Wimbledon followed an exit at the same stage of the French Open to Robin Soderling, and he has subsequently dropped to number three in the world – his lowest ranking for seven years.

Federer has had several temporary associations with coaches in recent years, including Darren Cahill, Jose Higueras and Tony Roche.

He is next due in competitive action at the Rogers Cup in Toronto from 9 August, before the US Open gets under way on 30 August.

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Serena was spotted hobbling around Beverly Hills on crutches after stitches to deep cuts she suffered when she stepped on broken glass in a restaurant.

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Anna Chakvetadze cruised to a straight sets victory over Johanna Larsson to claim the Slovenia Open crown on Sunday.

The Russian took little over an hour to sweep past Sweden’s Larsson 6-1 6-2 in a rain-delayed final at Portoroz

It is the first title since 2008 for Chakvetadze, who has slipped from the top five to number 103 in the rankings.

Larsson briefly threatened an unlikely comeback towards the end of the match when she had three break points just after claiming her third game.

But Chakvetadze kept her cool to end Larsson’s dreams of a maiden victory in her first WTA final.

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 Julia Goerges took Bad Gastein by storm on Sunday to win her first Sony Ericsson WTA Tour title, beating Alize Cornet in a rain delayed semifinal then defeating Timea Bacsinszky later in the day in the final.

Goerges, who had never played Cornet or Bacsinszky before, was strong on serve in both matches, maintaining a first serve percentage of over 60% and winning over 70% of those points throughout the day – and that helped her record 61 64 victories over both the Frenchwoman and the Swiss.

Before this week, Goerges’ best results on the Tour were four semifinal finishes. Not only did she break that personal best with her win over Cornet, who had taken out No.1 seed Andrea Petkovic earlier in the week, but she carried that momentum into the title match against No.2 seed Bacsinszky.

Goerges has now won 13 of her last 14 matches,

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Andrey Golubev capped a dream week on Sunday by becoming the first player from Kazakhstan to win an ATP World Tour title with a 6-3, 7-5 victory over third seed Jurgen Melzer in the final of the German Open Tennis Championships in Hamburg.

As champion of the ATP World Tour 500 clay-court tournament, Golubev received 500 South African Airways 2010 ATP Ranking points and €228,000, while runner-up Melzer earned 300 points and €104,000 in prize money.

The 23-year-old Golubev, who celebrated his birthday on Thursday by recording his first Top 10 win over No. 6 Nikolay Davydenko in the third round, is the third first-time winner on the ATP World Tour this season. He joins John Isner (Auckland) and Ernests Gulbis (Delray Beach).

Golubev had won just eight tour-level matches this season coming into Hamburg but discovered his best form as he raced to the title without losing a set all week. He was contesting his second ATP World Tour final, having finished runner-up to Andy Murray in the 2008 St. Petersburg Open final.

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Ana Ivanovic has been drawn against Russian world No.26 Alisa Kleybanova in the first round of the Bank of the West Classic, which begins in Stanford on Monday.

It will be the fourth meeting between the pair in women’s tennis – they played once as juniors with Ana winning – and the Russian leads the head-to-head series 3-1. She most recently beat Ana at the French Open in May. On hard courts, the surface in Stanford, the count is one victory each.

Samantha Stosur and Elena Dementieva both earning first-round byes and locking up the top two seeds, respectively.

Stosur appears to be well-positioned in the first quarter of the draw, as she is guaranteed to face a qualifier in her second round matchup. Wildcard entrant Hilary Barte, a three-time All-American in both singles and doubles heading into her senior season at Stanford, will square off against Dominika Cibulkova in another interesting contest.

The second quarter of the draw features two seeded players in No. 4 Marion Bartoli, the defending Bank of the West Classic champion and No. 8 Victoria Azarenka, along with a few other familiar names.

Current World No. 11 Agnieszka Radwanska is seeded No. 3, headlining the top half of the main draw on the opposite side. Sixth-seeded Shahar Peer opposes Daniela Hantuchova in a must-see contest, while Maria Kirilenko battles one of two qualifiers in that section.

After a first-round bye, Dementieva will play the winner of former World No. 1 Dinara Safina and Kimiko Date Krumm. On the opposite side of that quarter is a highly-anticipated matchup between three-time Grand Slam champion Maria Sharapova and 2010 Australian Open semifinalist Jie Zheng.

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