Tuesday, January 1
Last updated at 12:40 am EDT
AUSTRALIAN PRESS
Open keeps under-fire heat policy - Linda Pearce, Melbourne Age
Monday's 42-degree temperatures at Memorial Drive had earlier been described by fifth seed Radek Stepanek as the hottest he had experienced, while the Czech's Victorian opponent, Joe Sirianni, indicated players would not be opposed to a specific heat-related policy being considered for all ATP events....No longer will a halt be called when the comfort calculation, known as wet-bulb globe reading, hits a specific level; a decision will be made solely at the discretion of referee Wayne McKewen.
Tiley today said he was confident the courts would be the perfect speed come the start of the Open on January 14 - even if they were not playing as quick as some players were expecting. "The feedback I'm getting directly from the players is they love the feel, (that they have a) good underfoot feel," he said. "I think some of them felt the courts were going to be a lot faster and that's the perception because they hear around the world that we're changing the courts and we're going to make them faster."But we've never said that. We've said they're going to be consistent and the same across the venue.
"Actually, if you take the consistency of pace of all the courts, on average they would be quicker than the courts we've had previously because some of them were so much slower.
"But the courts generally you're going to find are not going to be quicker.
"The underfeel is going to be better, the bounce is going to be better and the biggest thing is they're not going to respond to the heat.
"An example has been seen in Adelaide, where they haven't responded to the (extreme) heat."
France's Virginie Razzano and Slovakia's Dominika Cibulkova started their first-round match at the Australian women's hardcourts on Sunday - last year.They played again on Monday and finally wrapped things up in three sessions, in and out of the rain yesterday, the first day of 2008.
"It was really tough to play three days for one match," said Cibulkova, who won 6-2 6-2.
INTERNATIONAL PRESS
Santoro will be playing his 62nd Grand Slam when the Australian Open begins on January 14 in Melbourne, a feat unmatched in the history of the professional era. “I had not thought about the record, but of late a lot of people have been asking me about it and I realised ‘it was great’, the French veteran said yesterday after a first round victory over Italian Andreas Seppi in the Qatar ExxonMobil Open....The fourth-seeded Croat won 6-4,6-4 against Stefan Koubek, the 2003 champion from Austria whose three-set win over him at the Madrid Masters in October denied him a place at the ATP Tour year-ending championships in Shanghai.
“That was a painful loss,” admitted Ljubicic, “So I was pleased to win this time. I didn’t expect to win that easily though. But I like it here.
“This court suits me and it is always great to come back to where you have done well.”
The seventh seed from Russia looked out of sorts on Centre Court of the Khalifa Tennis Complex on the opening day and surrendered meekly to Thomas Johansson of Sweden in 6-1, 6-0 straight sets.
Heather Burke, a student at Sterling University, Britain, is in Doha to spend her vacation with her parents. " I am a great fan of tennis and been to many international matches. This is something unique. Perhaps, Qatar is the only country in the world which offers a free ticket to the tennis fans to enjoy an international tourney", she said.Sherin Nazim, a long time resident of Doha, is a regular spectator at Qatar Open till he left for Canada in 1998. "There were very few girls and ladies who turned up to watch the game in those days. I am really amazed by the big crowd of girls and ladies this time", Sherin said.
But the flip side of the event is poor publicity. "None of my friends, who are really crazy about tennis were not aware of the tourney until I rang them up this morning", she said.
Many like him, were denied the chance of watching a live match, possibly because some who purchased season tickets chose to stay at home on the New Year day or may be, tickets were given out to corporates and they decided to come for the bigger matches scheduled to be held later this week.
I don’t really know what happened. It’s the first match, and I haven’t had a routine for a while. I made a lot of mistakes and he served real solid. He took his chances. He had nothing to lose I guess,” said Baghdatis. “I don’t think there is a huge problem. It’s just a question of getting into rhythm,” he added.“He’s a great player, and you tend to play well against a great player because you have to. Everyone has a chance in the beginning of the year. I was also lucky that he was out of form; but was a little surprised that he didn’t attack more,” said Haase.
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It's taking months and months. And it may take my whole life. As a tennis player I am patient, it doesn't bother me," said the world number four. But the Russian couldn't help but voice his frustration at the slow pace of the inquiry into an incident of which he says he's completely innocent."I provided telephone connection data at the beginning of December and then the ATP wanted data from my wife and brother which we refused. If we allowed that to happen they would be taking data from my grandmother."
His patience waning, Davydenko called the ATP attitude towards him as "idiotic. I want to fight to get my reputation back."
...And the New Year has not changed a thing: "It's not finished. It's actually worse, but I just concentrate on my tennis."
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BRITISH PRESS
Andy Murray is close to firming up his backroom team with Miles Maclagan - the Scot who once notably emerged from retirement to partner Tim Henman to a crucial Davis Cup victory - in pole position to fill the gap left after Murray's split with Brad Gilbert. The 33-year-old Zambia-born coach appears to be the figure with most to offer the discreet harmony of an all-new Team Murray. Maclagan will continue to work with Murray until the Australian Open, after which a decision will be made about their future together: an arrangement underlining Murray's caution and concern to avoid repeats of the conflict he experienced with Gilbert in a working relationship that ended in November. "In sport now it's so intense and so hectic and it's such a long season. There's a lot of changes and stuff in coaches and players because it's such an individual sport," Murray said, referring to the frequent break-up of player-coach arrangements."The relationship isn't as good after you've had a few rows and you are a little bit fed up with them," added the 20-year-old Scot. "You want to try and limit that as much as possible.["]
...Murray also rejected the notion that his break-up with Gilbert was caused by the four stressful months when his injured wrist kept him off the tour[.] "No, I don't think it was that period at all," said. "I didn't spend that much time with him when I was injured. You can spend a lot of time with someone in 18 months and what I learned from Brad in 18 months was great. I finished 11 in the world and nearly in the top eight. If I hadn't had the injury I probably would have been higher. So the time I spent with him was really positive."
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