Italy’s Flavia Pennetta and Francesca Schiavone announce that they will play doubles together during the first half of the 2012 season in order to try and qualify for the Olympics together. Pennetta has played to great success with Argentina’s Gisela Dulko during the past two seasons.
Venus and Serena Williams, who won the gold medal together in 2008, also say that they will try and defend their championship, but Serena will need an exemption to get in because she has not met Olympic qualifying rules in regards to Fed Cup.
In an exhibition in Milan, Venus, who has not played a regular tour event since announcing at the US Open that she has an auto-immune disease, lost both her singles matches to Schiavone and Pennetta.