Tuesday, January 15
Last updated at 8:45 pm EDT
AUSTRALIAN PRESS
Britain knows the score - zip - Melbourne Age
HERE'S a measure of what Andy Murray's defeat yesterday by a Frenchman meant for their respective nations: His conqueror, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, is one of 29 French remaining in the men's and women's singles draw. The United Kingdom has none.
JESSICA Moore grew up playing on a weed-infested gravel court on her parents' farm in the West Australian wheat belt. Williams is 161 kilometres south of Perth and thousands further away from Melbourne Park, where Moore and Casey Dellacqua were the host nation's only two winners in an opening-day session watched by a record crowd of 41,454.
THERE were no fairytales at Melbourne Park yesterday. Despite the collective will of the crowd to find an underdog on the rise, a Cinderella of the Australian Open, it simply was not to be.
GOSSIP. Everyone loves it, and the tennis world is no different. The corridors of Melbourne Park are full of people telling each other the latest rumours, especially when we haven't seen each other for a while. Who is dating, who said nasty things about who, whose muscles just doubled in size. For the best of it, the player lounge/restaurant is the place.
JELENA Jankovic suspected she might be in for a difficult day when the courtesy car that collected her from her city hotel started heading towards the wrong park: Albert. The driver had mistakenly thought his passenger was about to practise, not play. How wrong he was.
NOT all records at the Australian Open are struck on court. Yesterday's official attendance - 41,494 - was a record for the first day session.
IN AN idealistic world, Brydan Klein might have been enjoying his grand slam debut on Margaret Court Arena yesterday.
THERE is a school of thought that Melbourne Park already had a perfectly good surface, one far more likely to produce local champions, and that it was short-sighted and - to borrow a word from a bygone political era - even "un-Australian" to dig it up.
ALICIA Molik was down three games to nil in the opening set of her first match at the Australian Open last night. Jumped from the opening, she could have feared an opening-night embarrassment.
A RECURRING nightmare has been arriving in recent days of Lleyton Hewitt standing in the Australian slip cordon, between those pious gents Ricky and Matthew, snarling to Indian batsmen that "Life is not a game of tiddlywinks, you $#@%."
TENNIS next year may introduce provisional suspensions for players found guilty of offences under the anti-doping code, in a strategic move to cut the time between positive samples being tested and penalties announced.
MARTIN Vassallo Arguello first saw the infamous bookmakers' dossier of suspect matches just before Christmas, and was surprised and bemused to find that his name featured nine times, second only to Italian Filippo Volandri. Davydenko and Sopot have been the two key words in the ATP's match-fixing controversy; Vassallo Arguello equals two more.
LIKE the colour of the stage itself, much has changed for Serena Williams and Justine Henin since previously they trod the boards at the Australian Open. Not that either is singing the blues.
TRIPLE French Open winner Rafael Nadal allayed fears his Australian Open assault would be derailed by injury with a tight three-set win over qualifier Viktor Troicki.
A MORE confident and aggressive Alicia Molik has helped Australia's female contingent to a euphoric start to the year's first major.With three players claiming spots in the second round of their home Grand Slam and four waiting in the wings it augurs well for Australiia.
WE all know people who don't quite finish things. The friend who has five partially read novels on the bedside table. The DIY guy who starts every garden project with the best of intentions but never gets that last nail in place. The infuriating eater who plays with that last bite until you want to commandeer the fork.Get two of these people together, give them each a tennis racquet, put them on opposite sides of the Vodafone Arena net, and that is what you had when Jelena Jankovic played Tamira Paszek yesterday.
CHRIS GUCCIONE wears big shoes but the past week has given him a taste of what it is like to follow in the footsteps of Lleyton Hewitt.That shadow is not something he is keen on stepping out of, at least in terms of claiming the public spotlight.
The Sydney International finalist, who stands 2.01m and starts his Australian Open campaign today against Korea's Hyung-Taik Lee, has rarely courted attention despite claiming the occasional big scalp since his debut in 2004.
COULD Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the Frenchman with more than a passing resemblance to a youthful Muhammad Ali, be the hero Melbourne adopts this fortnight?The powerful European yesterday provided the biggest knock-out punch on the opening day of the tournament by upsetting Scottish star Andy Murray 7-5 6-4 0-6 7-6 (7-5) in a thriller between two young guns that lived up to its post-draw billing as the match of the round.
AFTER six years of trying, Casey Dellacqua finally cracked the second round of the Australian Open, with a crisp cross-court backhand volley and a double-fisted punch.Dellacqua disposed of world No50 Italian Karin Knapp 4-6 6-3 8-6.
With the improvements Dellacqua has made in her game since joining the Australian Institute of Sport tennis program and coming under the tutelage of Alicia Molik's former coach David Taylor, it is hard to know which brought about the breakthrough, time or talent.
THE only rule which applies to Roger Federer is that normal rules don't apply. For every argument against the Swiss genius claiming an unprecedented third Australian Open - and there is at least one good one, given he hasn't hit a ball in anger since last November - there remains a sense of resignation around Melbourne Park that this year's first major tournament, like last year's, remains Federer's to win or lose.
WHILE the Australian Open has tarted itself up with a change of colour, Lleyton Hewitt would dearly love a change of script.Every year this century, Hewitt has come to Melbourne Park with one thing on his mind. And every time, he has left with one more year "down the drain", as he bluntly put it yesterday.
BELGIAN star Justine Henin is using the dreadful memories that have tormented her over the past three Australian Opens as a motivating spur this fortnight.The normally durable Henin, who plays Japan's Aiko Nakamura today, ended her last campaign in Melbourne in an uncharacteristic manner when she forfeited the 2006 final to Amelie Mauresmo while trailing 6-1 2-0, sparking fierce criticism from commentators.
INTERNATIONAL PRESS
Premature retirements It takes time to build a tennis star, to create a meaningful relationship between player and public. But the game has lost too many of its own too early over the years, including Pat Rafter, the swashbuckling Australian, and the Belgian Kim Clijsters, the former world No. 1 and U.S. Open champion. Clijsters retired last year at age 23 to get married, start a family and avoid the fuss and bother of injuries and playing in her compatriot Justine Henin's increasingly large shadow. Maybe Lindsay Davenport's success after motherhood will give Clijsters reason to reconsider.A Monica Seles comeback Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing more of Pete Sampras at Wimbledon. Even though he is 36 and keeps insisting he won't come back, there are not enough true grass-courters left, and Sampras might plant some good ideas in the heads of the next generation by reminding them how to serve and volley one last time. He also might want to improve on his last Wimbledon memory: losing to the Swiss journeyman George Bastl in the second round in 2002. With the right draw, he could play a better final note.
A Federer injury He has been remarkably durable for someone who plays deep into just about every tournament he enters and for someone who does not appear to be that robust. But Federer trains hard and efficiently and is picky about where he expends his competitive energy. He played no more than 17 tournaments in any of the last three seasons and has cut back on his Davis Cup commitments. Still, with the physical demands of modern tennis, it is only a matter of time before something gives. Here's hoping it's not now, while he is at his peak and one of world sport's biggest attractions, no matter who he is playing.
Wires
ROGER Federer admits it was a "tough blow" splitting with Tony Roche and says the Australian coaching guru is an obvious asset for Lleyton Hewitt.Websites
Will they? Who knows? Plexicushion, which has replaced Rebound Ace, is not much different from the rubber that they played on last year, but it doesn’t bounce as high and is slower. But from my experience, is pretty close to the US Open surface (DecoTurf) in speed. I haven’t hit on it enough to say that the feel is much different, but it does have a little more stick to it than traditional hard courts. Federer thinks it’s too slow and like most of the players who have weighed in, says that the longer theWill they? Who knows? Plexicushion, which has replaced Rebound Ace, is not much different from the rubber that they played on last year, but it doesn’t bounce as high and is slower. But from my experience, is pretty close to the US Open surface (DecoTurf) in speed. I haven’t hit on it enough to say that the feel is much different, but it does have a little more stick to it than traditional hard courts. Federer thinks it’s too slow and like most of the players who have weighed in, says that the longer the
Koellerer plays a standard-issue baseline game but looks and acts like a professional wrestler. Though he has the distinction of being the only player his fellow pros have ever petitioned to get off the circuit, morbid curiosity still sometimes gets the better of them.Fellow Austrian Oliver Marach was sneaking a peak during Koellerer’s match against Baker on Saturday. He’s played Koellerer twice and observed we were seeing a toned-down version because it was a big match and the officiating was heavy. “All the players hate him” said Marach. “What he does, I should not even tell you. It’s better you don’t know.” According to him, two hundred players signed the infamous petition. It didn’t work, though Koellerer has been suspended for unruly behaviour in the past. But, Marach relutantly admits, Koellerer can play and has the ability to climb above his current ranking of 161 (and career-high of 131).
...But many on tour aren’t convinced that Jelena Jankovic’s nose surgery was just to correct breathing problems and didn’t have some kind of cosmetic element to it.
...One women’s coach also reported that he and his colleagues were very unhappy when the WTA informed them it wanted to conduct background checks on coaches – and charge them $300 to pay for it. The fee has been dropped, he said, but many are unhappy about other moves to introduce anti-doping liabilities and some commercially-related requirements for on-court coaching. They’re planning to huddle and discuss later in the week.
As for Murray, he's the sort of player you expect to prevail in an evenly played match, especially against a less experienced opponent and after winning Qatar to start the season. That, more than anything, is why this loss ought to sting.
Tamira Paszek... Still, the Austrian will be heading up the rankings. I don’t love her forehand grip or swing, but it’s an effective shot. Her weakness, other than the obligatory shaky serve, is that she needs power to create power; she’s not great at moving forward and using shot combinations to take the offensive. But her backhand is already among the best in the WTA. Last night I found myself thinking that she couldn’t miss a crosscourt backhand if she tried—until she missed an easy one on match point.
As a new mother and at age 31, Davenport isn't thinking long-term when it comes to tennis. She hoping that while avoiding the immense pressure she put on herself earlier in her career, she might be able to grab a second Olympic gold, another Fed Cup title and maybe, just maybe, her fourth Grand Slam in 2008. She hasn't even thought of whether she'll be playing in 2009 again. "(Jagger's) my whole life now," she said. " It's my little boy. It's so hard for me to comment about before. It's just the way it is now. I'm ecstatic. I can't believe I'm lucky enough to have him, still be able to play tennis. (I've) managed everything so far pretty well. Hopefully it continues to go that way."At 20, Sharapova has huge goals ahead. The first will be to reestablish herself as prime-time Grand Slam contender, which she could do in Australia by besting Davenport and somehow belting her way into the quarterfinals where she'd likely meet top ranked Justine Henin. Her camp thinks she can beat Davenport and get there, and that she'll have a very good chance to stop Henin's remarkable roll, which as of Monday in Australia, stood at 29 matches.
Sharapova won't touch that subject yet, but she believes that by nearly stopping Henin in a three and a half hour classic at the year-ending Sony Ericsson Championships, that she turned her head back in the right direction. "The whole week was just a great relief for me because I was very close to just saying a few weeks before that, 'This was not my year, it's just been really frustrating and difficult.' But I didn't give up," said Sharapova, who played reasonably well in her 6-4, 6-3 victory over Jelena Kostanic Tosic.
Davenport cruised through the first set but she lost her rhythm and labored through the second. Late in a tense third set, she lost her composure, and in a very un-Lindsay-like episode, argued French chair umpire Emmanuel Joseph's overrule so vociferously that a crowd inclined to love her began to boo"Are you crazy?" an infuriated Davenport yelped at one point. "I don't think this is fair. You're not doing a fair job out here." Later, she said she thought Joseph "choked'' and made the call to fit an incorrectly announced score.
Vassallo has mixed emotions about the recent suspensions of two Italian players for gambling on tennis. He conceded they broke a rule but wondered why the ATP decided to sanction behavior that occurred two years ago. He also said the betting companies could be doing more to avert potential match-fixing."Closing some bet matches, putting a limit on the right amount -- there are many things they can do to help and not just put players out of the tournaments for a small thing," he said.
...Lady luck: Mardy Fish and his fiancée, Stacey Gardner, a model who appears on the game show "Deal or No Deal," have set a September wedding date. Fish, who beat Serbia's Boris Pashanski in four sets Monday, said his Davis Cup pals intend to host a bachelor party for him in Las Vegas, another sign of the vaunted unity on that team. Gardner isn't going to open cash-stuffed briefcases forever, though -- she holds a law degree and might go into sports law, Fish said.
BRITISH PRESS
“I shudder to think what’s going to be written about this tomorrow.” It could have been Andy Murray on Andy Murray, but instead it was Andy Roddick on Andy Murray – an American who has had to contend with the plenty and the purgatory of being a nation’s No 1 tennis hope.
There was once a petition signed by more than 200 of his fellow professionals to have him expelled from tennis for a period, while an Italian player threatened to punch his lights out. Baker said that what got him most worked up was Köllerer’s attitude to the ballboys and girls, youngsters who do a difficult job in extremely hot conditions and do not need supposed professionals shouting at them: “I said ball, ball. Don’t you speak English in this country?”
Stopping the British has become quite a habit for Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. At last season's US Open, the young Frenchman famously brought Tim Henman's grand slam career to a close, and yesterday, during the opening session of the Australian Open, Tsonga again won 'Le Crunch' when he bumped out Andy Murray.
Now there is a real buzz of a possible seventh all-Williams final in a grand slam championship. Venus is keen to win her first ever Australian Open title while Serena, three times a champion in Melbourne, has rarely looked so fit. If she could win the title last year, then this year's model should be able to stroll it and she has an extra incentive in attempting to join Steffi Graf and Monica Seles as the only women to win the title here more than three times in the Open era. The difference this time is that Belgium's Justine Henin, the world No1, is back.
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