The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) Tour is the elite professional tennis circuit organized by the WTA. The 2010 WTA Tour calendar comprises the Grand Slam tournaments (supervised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF)), the WTA Premier tournaments (Premier Mandatory, Premier 5 and regular Premier), the WTA International tournaments, the Fed Cup (organized by the ITF), and the year-end championships (the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions and the WTA Tour Championships). Also included in the 2010 calendar is the Hopman Cup, which does not distribute ranking points and is organized by the ITF.
Notable stories
Serena Williams' season
Serena Williams began the season ranked World No. 1, having enjoyed an impressive 2009 season in which she won the Australian Open and Wimbledon (she would successfully defend both titles this year) and reclaimed the World No. 1 ranking on two occasions. Williams began her season by successfully defending her Australian Open title, defeating Justine Henin in a three-set final. She also successfully defended her Wimbledon title, defeating surprise finalist Vera Zvonareva in the final, 6–3, 6–2.
However, shortly after winning Wimbledon, Serena Williams would injure her foot at a German restaurant where she was celebrating her victory, but it didn't deter her from playing in an exhibition match against Kim Clijsters in front of a world-record tennis crowd that same week. The foot injury ended up being very serious enough to necessitate surgery, and as a result she missed the rest of the season and would not return to top-level tennis until June 2011. She was forced to miss her first US Open since 2003, and also had to withdraw from the year-end championships having qualified by virtue of winning Wimbledon. The injury worsened late in the year; despite accepting a wildcard into Linz, she had to withdraw from that tournament, with her wildcard entry later allocated to former World No. 1 Ana Ivanovic. Despite progress in her recovery from foot surgery, she lost the World No. 1 ranking to Danish youngster Caroline Wozniacki. Williams then announced her withdrawal from the 2011 Australian Open in November.
Justine Henin's comeback
Former World No. 1 Justine Henin announced her comeback to the WTA Tour in September last year, in the aftermath of Kim Clijsters' victory at the 2009 US Open. She had previously not played at the highest level since suffering a third round defeat to Dinara Safina (who went on to make the final of the French Open that year) at the 2008 Qatar Telecom German Open. Henin's comeback began impressively, reaching the final of the 2010 Brisbane International in which she lost to her compatriot and rival Kim Clijsters in a final set tiebreak. She had defeated Nadia Petrova and Ana Ivanovic en route. She then reached the final of the Australian Open, in which she was defeated by Serena Williams in three sets, having defeated fifth seed Elena Dementieva in the second round, 27th seed Alisa Kleybanova in the third, qualifier Yanina Wickmayer in the fourth, 19th seed Nadia Petrova in the quarter-finals and Zheng Jie in the semi-finals en route.
She then participated at her first French Open since 2007, where she was defeated in the fourth round by eventual finalist Samantha Stosur, ending a 24-match winning streak at the tournament dating back to 2005. Prior to the defeat against Stosur, Henin had played her first three-set match at the tournament, also since 2005, when she defeated Maria Sharapova in the third round. Later, at Wimbledon, Henin again reached the fourth round, but suffered a three-set loss to rival Clijsters. During the match, she suffered an elbow injury which would later rule her out of the US Open, that same injury would lead to her second (and final) retirement in January 2011.