It's that early part of the tennis year when players start jockeying for positioning, an effort to implant themselves as an integral part of the tennis conversation for the season. After a week of action at the WTA's Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, contested by seven of the top 10 and 14 of the top 20, two players from different ends of the tennis spectrum emerged as women to watch. One player is a rising star verging on top-10 status for the first time, the other is a veteran superstar seriously poised to reclaim top-10 territory. Karolina Pliskova: Moving on up When the 2014 season concluded, Pliskova had orchestrated her first top-50 finish, comfortably ensconced at No. 24 after winning two of her three career tour titles -- Seoul and Linz -- during the year. That seemed pretty impressive, especially when you consider it came against Pliskova's twin sister, Kristyna, who closed out the season nearly 100 ranking spots behind Karolina at No. 123. Both were Grand Slam junior champions in 2010: Karolina at the Australian Open, Kristyna at Wimbledon, but it was Kristyna who drew more attention at the time. Fast-forward to 2015 and it turns out that 22-year-old Karolina is the one taking the tennis world by storm. In a period of six weeks, on a journey that spanned four continents, Karolina is on the verge of a first foray to a top-10 ranking. Karolina is leaving Dubai, where she played with a career-high ranking of No. 18 and reached the final. As of Monday morning, she had reached No. 13. Pliskova's take on this quick rise: "I still can't imagine myself, I'm [13] on the ranking, but I just hope it's gonna come by itself and I'm just going to start to feel like I belong." The Dubai final, where she lost to top seed Simona Halep 6-4, 7-6 (4), was Pliskova's second of the year along with a Sydney runner-up showing. After reaching the Australian Open third round, she traveled to Canada to make her Fed Cup debut, piloting the defending champion Czechs to April's semifinal by winning both of her singles matches. From there, Pliskova journeyed to Antwerp, where she was a semifinalist. Next up is Doha this week, part of a heavy schedule she mapped out not anticipating she was going to head toward the weekend at most tour stops. If the progress continues, Pliskova understands she's going to have to make revisions to her calendar, as keeping up that kind of pace will be impossible. The Pliskova sisters have happily shared all their adventures and were always inseparable. That is until last year, when Karolina began advancing at an accelerated speed. Although she is confident that Kristyna isn't jealous of her rise, Karolina agrees it has had to be hard for Kristyna to be left behind. Considering Karolina picked up a check for $227,860 for her Dubai runner-up role while Kristyna settled for a semifinal placement at the $50,000 ITF Women's circuit event in Switzerland last week, the divide can't be ignored. But Karolina is keeping her fingers crossed Kristyna will become a regular at WTA tournaments shortly, especially given that the two like to play doubles together. "I think she's going to do better now," Karolina said. "She can be for sure better than she is, and I hope she will be somewhere in the top 100 or top 50, closer to me, soon." Venus Williams: Tennis still a pleasure Venus rolls her eyes when reminded of all the times as a teen sensation that she and younger sister Serena, the world No. 1, announced their tennis careers would be over by their mid-20s simply because there would be other life pursuits to conquer. Age has come with wisdom for Venus, who at 34 years old is delighting in still being relevant in the game, especially considering her victory to overcome a daily battle with energy-zapping Sjogren's syndrome to capably return to close to the top of the WTA rankings. Venus, who was No. 11 when she arrived in Dubai as the defending champion, failed to capture a fourth career title there, losing to Lucie Safarova in the third round. But Venus did again prove that youth doesn't always prevail over valuable experience. In the second round, she served up a serious tennis tutoring with a 6-1, 6-2 win against 17-year-old Belinda Bencic, the 2013 ITF junior champion. It's clear Venus still finds joy in playing and continues to work on improving her game. She is clearly excited to have recently incorporated a more respectable backhand slice into her arsenal of weapons, smiling at the thought that she still is able to add to her bag of tricks. Venus has already won her first title of the year, at Auckland last month, and readily admits the goal for this year is to keep adding to her collection of 46 singles titles. "It's already been awesome this year," Venus said. "Obviously I want to win events. That's pretty much my target. If you're doing that, then the ranking goes up, as well; I have just been super happy with the year so far. It's disappointing to lose, but it makes me better." And there's no denial that her outlook is firmly forecast on playing quality tennis in 2016, most especially with the hope that, as a former multiple Olympic champion, she'll be traveling to Rio de Janeiro as a member of the 2016 U.S. Olympic team with the goal of draping more gold around her neck. "I like to think and hope I'm still part of the reason that the bar is going higher," Venus said of her current role in the sport. "Once I'm at home and watching it on TV one day, and hopefully not commentating, I will be like, 'Man, I can't keep up with these girls. They're too good.'" Until that day comes, Williams vows to keep on keeping on.
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