Like Richie Tenenbaum, Caroline Wozniacki failed to develop as a painter. (Getty)

Love -- Caroline Wozniacki held a falcon at the player's party in Dubai. She probably has another good two or three years of competitive play left in her.

15 -- The former world No. 1 heads up a solid quarterfinal field at the tournament. She'll play Ana Ivanovic in one Thursday quarter. The winner of that match plays either Julie Goerges and Daniela Hantuchova. On the other side of the draw, Jelena Jankovic plays Sam Stosur and Agnieszka Radwanska plays Sabine Lisicki.

30 -- From 10sballs.com: Maria Sharapova is designing a watch for Tag Heuer. She also name-drops Uma Thurman and Brad Pitt (in that order, which I found odd).

40 -- For what will probably be a brief time only, you can currently get longer odds on Roger Federer to win the French Open (12-1) than Juan Martin Del Potro (10-1) at a top British oddsmaker.

(Getty Images)

World No. 1 Victoria Azarenka withdrew from the Dubai Tennis Championships on Wednesday, joining three other seeded players in an early injury exit from the tournament. It's the latest in a rash of ailments that have plagued the start to the 2012 WTA season.

Here's a list of top WTA players who have withdrawn from a tournament so far this year (with current rankings in parenthesis):

• Victoria Azarenka, Brisbane and Dubai (1)

• Maria Sharapova, Brisbane (2)

• Petra Kvitova, Dubai (3)

• Marion Bartoli, Doha (7)

• Vera Zvonareva, Doha and Dubai (8)

• Li Na, Paris, Dubai (9)

(Getty)

Game Point is Busted Racquet's roundup of facts, figures and links from around the web.

Love -- Showing little effect from his 0-2 Davis Cup performance, Roger Federer won the ABN Amro event in Rotterdam, defeating Juan Martin Del Potro, 6-1, 6-4 in Sunday's final. The world No. 3 rallied from a set and a break down in Saturday's semifinal to Nikolay Davydenko. For his efforts, Federer won approximately $450,000, less than half of his reported $1 million appearance fee at the event.

15 -- Andy Roddick dropped to No. 27 in the ATP rankings, his lowest position since Aug. 19, 2001. The 29-year-old American's 10-spot drop was due to dropping the 500 ranking points he earned with last year's win in Memphis.

30 -- Bar Refaeli, who posed with Rafael Nadal in this year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, recently played tennis in her underwear. I could pretty much write anything in this sentence since I'm sure nobody made it past the last one.

40 -- SI.com's Jon Wertheim talks tennis with

Azarenka makes an involuntarily sound as she hits a backhand (Getty)

"Do you have to grunt?" is the new "do you deserve to be No. 1?"

The ascension of Victoria Azarenka to the top of the WTA rankings brings about a number of changes to women's tennis. One of them is that press conferences involving the world No. 1 will now contain at least one thinks-it's-more-clever-than-it-is question about grunting instead of a how-do-you-phrase-this-without-sounding-like-a-condescending-jerk question about deserving to be No. 1 without winning a Grand Slam.

To her credit, Azarenka is still trying to creatively defend herself on the grunting issue rather than speaking in platitudes. Consider this exchange from Doha.

Q. [...] [Is grunting] something you could go on the court and adjust like that, or is this something that will be with us for your entire career?

VICTORIA AZARENKA: Well, it will be with me for my entire career.  But let me put it that way: Do you snore?

Q.  I do, actually.

VICTORIA AZARENKA:  Can you control that?

Q. Well, there are ways, I guess.

VICTORIA AZARENKA: There are ways?  But you still snore, right?

(Getty Images)

"I think confidence is very overrated," said world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka after defeating Sam Stosur 6-1, 6-2 in the Doha finals for her 17th-straight win to open the 2012 season.

That sounds exactly like something the most confident player on the WTA might say. Azarenka won her opening tournament of the season, took home her first Grand Slam, ascended to No. 1 and then consolidated the ranking with the win in Doha. Her rise comes exactly one year after she says her game "was a little bit of a mess." Now she's playing through injuries, hitting her groundstrokes with power and precision and putting away top-ten opponents in the first set.

Though it's too early to make comparisons to Novak Djokovic's run at the beginning of 2012, the whispers are already there. A win in Dubai this week would turn them into legitimate conversation.

Sharapova and Vogue editor Anna Wintour, at the Vera Wang show. (Getty)

Maria Sharapova is in New York this week for the city's biannual fashion week. The second-ranked Sharapova dazzled at multiple fashion shows, posing for pictures for the paparazzi, hobnobbing with celebrities and, most importantly, gave me a chance to use the word "hobnobbing."

Sharapova didn't walk the runway, but was front and center at the Vera Wang show, sitting next to Vogue editor Anna Wintour (above). If Wintour can't be with her favorite tennis player, Roger Federer, the glamourous Sharapova is the next best thing. (As a bonus, they have the same taste in jackets.)

A gallery of photos featuring Maria at fashion week:

At Rodarte's 2012 fall show. (Getty)

(AP)

Game Point is Busted Racquet's roundup of facts, figures and links from across the web.

Love -- Caroline Wozniacki lost her first match since falling from No. 1, blowing three match points in a 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 loss to Lucie Safarova at the Qatar Open.

Chris Skelton tweeted a fascinating stat after the loss: In between the 2010 and 2011 editions of Wimbledon, Wozniacki lost two total matches before the third round of a tournament. In the seven months since Wimbledon 2011, she has already lost six such matches. The knock on Caro was always that she didn't have the game for the full-field events. No one ever doubted her ability to win the lesser ones. Right now, she'd love to contend in a second-tier event.

15 -- Here's another stat: Wozniacki has a 20-10 (67 percent) record since she started dating Rory McIlroy. In the 11 months before she met him, her record was 74-12 (86 percent).

30 -- Andy Roddick was victorious in his return to the tennis court. Playing for the first time since pulling out of the Australian Open with a hamstring injury, the 29-year-old American held off 19-year-old Denis Kudla in three sets at the San Jose Open. The final score was 6-7, 7-6, 6-4.

Ana Ivanovic wished me a happy Valentine's Day.

Sure, it was on a YouTube video posted by the WTA and available to anyone with an Internet connection, but I felt the spark. It's undeniable.

If you want a V-Day greeting from Caroline Wozniacki, Victoria Azarenka, Sam Stosur or Agnieszka Radwasnka, you'll enjoy the video below.

I'm just kidding about Ana. The only valentine in my life is sitting next to me right now. And I swear she didn't make me write that.