Betting on the women’s draw at the French Open used to be simple: Bet on Justine Henin. The sudden retirement of the world’s No. 1 women’s tennis player left the doors open for sweeping change at Roland Garros. Saturday’s final pits the new No. 1 Ana Ivanovic (as of Monday’s upcoming rankings) against Dinara Safina, the sister of former men’s No. 1 Marat Safin.

Ivanovic was even money at press time. She has the larger body of work, reaching the finals of last year’s French Open against Henin and doing the same at this year’s Australian Open, where she lost to Maria Sharapova – whom Ivanovic will overtake for the top spot in the WTA rankings on Monday. Safina is the No. 13 seed at Roland Garros and a 3-1 underdog on Saturday, but her one career victory in three tries against Ivanovic was on clay at the 2005 Berlin Open.

Well the results are in. If you happed to miss out this year watching the Australian Open, it was full of surprises.

For the men’s singles, it was Novak Djokovic who took the title yesterday over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. For both players it was a huge victory to even get to the finals.

Djokovic ended the 12 time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer’s 19 match winning streak during the semi finals with a 7-5, 6-3, 7-6 (7-5). Tsonga, the man who has become know as ‘Ali’ because of his likeness to the American boxing legend, played an amazing semi-final game against No. 2 ranked Rafael Nadal with an emphatic 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 win.

The two men began the final match nervously, but their momentum quickly picked up. Having not dropped a sent en route to the final, the world No.3 Djokovic, had to do it the hard way, firstly rallying from a set down and then also battling a hamstring strain that suffered early in the fourth set to beat unseeded Frenchman Tsonga 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (7-2).

“I’m very very happy that I won my first Grand Slam here and so hopefully I’ll see you here in this stage more often in the future,” said Djokovic at the trophy presentation.

Despite his loss Tsonga was none the less happy to have just made it as far as he did. “I’m very proud of myself” he said. “I’m happy for Novak, because he played unbelievable today. I don’t know if I have to be sad or happy of this final, but I feel great.”

As for the women’s singles it was Maria Sharapova who came out on top against Ana Ivanovic. Sharapova mad the stronger start and grabbed the momentum with a break in the fifth game when Ivanovic hit a backhand long, but three games later the set was back on an even keel thanks largely to three Sharapova double faults. The game ended with 7-5, 6-3 win.

This will be Sharapova’s third Grand Slam victory already being a champion at Wimbledon in 2004 and the US Open in 2006.

“If someone had told me in the middle of last year that I would be standing in the middle of this tennis court holding the big one, I would have said get out of here” Sharapova said.

Concerns surrounding match-fixing in men’s tennis have surfaced since August 2007, when an online betting company reported strange betting patterns during a match between Russian fourth-ranked Nikolay Davydenko and Martin Vassallo Arguello of Argentina. Since then, several players have said they were approached with offers to fix matches for money.

The ATP, which recently introduced anti-corruption rules, suspended Italians Potito Starace and Daniele Bracciali for making bets on tennis matches involving other players.
While men’s tennis may be getting tarnished Maria Sharapova claims the woman’s game is very clean.
Sharapova, 20, said Larry Scott, the WTA Tour chief executive, “is doing all the things possible, from having meetings throughout the year to encouraging players to be safe and smart about their choices.”

Would you ever want to play a game on this court? Located atop the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, it’s the worlds highest. It also doubles ad a helicopter landing pad when its not being used for extreme sports matches.

Watch tennis greats Agassi and Federer get their first taste of this amazing court here.