Tuesday, December 11
Last updated at 12:35 pm EST
AUSTRALIAN PRESS
Third title as Tomic eyes future - Melbourne Age
Roche revealed that Hewitt would make a slight change to his game style — adding more variation and aggression — in a recognition that Federer and Nadal were playing a different game to the one that Hewitt "dominated" some years ago.Roche yesterday predicted that 2008 could be a major upswing for Hewitt, who "had a new lease of life" and, having settled into family life, was looking forward to a more productive next phase of his career. Asked what Hewitt's goal was for next month's Australian Open, Roche bluntly replied: "To win it."
...While the experience of coaching Federer provides a fairly daunting benchmark for Roche in preparing Hewitt, he said Hewitt and Federer were "totally different personalities and totally different players". "So you can't really compare those two. But Lleyton's his own man. We know what his strengths are — he'll leave his heart on the court and, you know, there's no question he's going to be so fit that the five-set matches in the heat is not going to be a problem. It's just now getting the matches under his belt in Adelaide and Sydney and I think if he can do that then he'll be a real threat down here."
But Roche wants his charge to become more adventurous and less defensive."He's (Hewitt) not going to go away from his strengths, but it's important for him to add a little bit of variation to his game and be a little bit more aggressive, look to finish the points and utilise a few other areas of his game," Roche said yesterday.
"Just (being) not too predictable. He's been the No. 1 player in the world and he's won two slams and he's won the Davis Cup, so he does a lot of things right. But it's probably the time now in his career he just needs to add a little bit of variation to his game, and that's what he's working on."
..."He's doing a lot of training off court and doing three hours a day on court, so the first part of the preparation has gone very well. The next part now is getting some good matches under his belt in Adelaide and Sydney for his preparation for the Australian Open."
INTERNATIONAL PRESS
Second seed Alla Kudryavtseva got off to a winning start as the 9th Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge got under way at the Al Habtoor Grand Resort and Spa on Monday... But much of the focus was on the tussle between Uzbekistan’s Iroda Tulyaganova and American Neha Uberoi with the Uzbek cruising through in straight sets 6-4, 6-2 after more than one and a half hour on court....A one-time top-20 player on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, Tulyaganova has slipped down the rankings after a long lay-off of three years following an elbow surgery. “But it has been good now especially after I have started winning once again. I hope this tournament can give me a lot of confidence,” she said.
Action will continue today with top seed Maria Kirilenko expected to play wild card Aniko Kapros in their opening round match this afternoon.
The shooting of a commercial advertisement featuring tennis star Sania Mirza at the historic Mecca Masjid here has sparked a row with the minorities welfare department seeking a report from the mosque officials.The ad was shot on Tuesday without the permission of the department, which is responsible for the upkeep of the 17th century mosque. The shooting also evoked protest from the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), a powerful Muslim political party in the Muslim-majority old city.
...The advertisers had informed the police about the shooting and Sania's arrival but did not bother to take permission from the minorities welfare department. The police reportedly used mild force twice to disperse locals objecting to the shooting. The mosque employees said the attitude of some of the members of shooting unit was also objectionable. They were reportedly wearing shoes when they entered the mosque and pushed away a mosque watchman who tried to stop them.
Wires
"It (playing in the Olympics) probably means more than anything to me - Athens was probably the highlight of my career, so that's a good indication of my feeling towards Beijing," she said."It's not too often that you're a part of the Olympics and still my position isn't guaranteed, but it's something I'm shooting for, obviously.
"I had the time of my life in Athens.
"It's always a really fun time, as much as it is a challenging one - it's something I'm really, really looking forward to, more than anything in 2008."
The ASB Tennis Classic's fifth seed is obviously taking the tournament very seriously, as she arrives in Auckland tonight.The earliest that players have flown into the country in the past is two weeks before the New Year's Eve event, so 17-year-old Austrian Tamira Paszek is about to smash that record by about a week.
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I found myself watching La Dolfina Polo team playing against Ellestrina Polo team in the finals with Nalbandian, his girlfriend, the impossibly gorgeous Victoria Vanucci, and legendary soccer star Diego Maradona all of whom were personally invited to the match by Adolfo Cambiaso, known locally as "Adolfito". Cambiaso, who looks a little like a South American Pierce Brosnan, is widely regarded as the best polo player in world.In Buenos Aires, David and Victoria receive the type of crowd response normally reserved for David Beckham and Posh in other parts of the world: everyone in the Palermo Open crowd stopped to look and snap photos of the nation's top tennis star and his model girlfriend, a former tennis player herself, who has graced the pages of Playboy and Maxim. Nalbandian was quiet but polite in dealing with the crowd.
Any dude over 35 still performing at a high level will get mad love from the media in large part because it's dudes over 35 -- living somewhat vicariously through the age-defying wonder -- who are deciding what's newsworthy. And for the most part it is men over 35 who gobble this stuff up, because they're either losing their hair or their knees crack and they need a shred of hope to hold on to.Trust me, I know of what I speak. That last paragraph? Semi-autobiographical.
But then someone recently said six words to me that left me both inspired and ashamed: "Talk to me when you're 50."
1. NASCAR
2. Maria Sharapova
3. Boston Red Sox
4. David Beckham
5. Serena Williams
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