Tuesday, January 22
Last updated at 12:20 pm EST
AUSTRALIAN PRESS
Living in the shadow of Federer - Linda Pearce, Melbourne Age
IF MORE can often be learnt from defeat than victory, Harvard graduate James Blake is painfully well-versed in Roger Federer 101. Professor Blake's are not the only maths that have him zero wins from seven matches, with tomorrow's Australian Open quarter-final presenting daunting equation No. 8.
IMAGINE you're driving down a tree-lined country lane, singing along as the radio plays your favourite tune, fingers drumming the wheel, elbow parked out the window, the wind in your hair. Then you round a bend, and the road beneath your tyres vanishes, even before foot hears brain scream, "Brake!"
ON THE women's tour, Venus Williams is a goddess of hard hits and rings with bling.In her spare time, world No. 3 Ana Ivanovic likes to read about mythology but naturally nothing in those pages revealed anything about Venus the tennis player.
WHEN the tennis world turned its gaze to Rod Laver Arena for the match between Roger Federer and Tomas Berdych yesterday we were asking a few questions.
LLEYTON Hewitt's Australian Open is over, just as Casey Dellacqua's ended the night before, and Hewitt's first straight-sets exit since 2000 leaves the host nation without a singles quarter-finalist for the third consecutive year.Hewitt was eliminated 7-5, 6-3, 6-3 by third seed Novak Djokovic, although at least this match started at a civilised hour, and Hewitt bounced out more like a player who had just awoken from a long and nourishing sleep than one who did not get to bed the previous day until well after the sun was already up.
A WORLD No. 1 was toppled and her 32-match winning streak stopped; it was a great night out for Maria Sharapova. The 20-year-old destroyed Justine Henin last night 6-4, 6-0 to advance to the Australian Open semi-finals.Sharapova's box went wild. Her father, Yuri Sharapov, seemed to make a dramatic throat-slitting motion as his daughter blew kisses to the crowd. Sharapova has said her father looks like an "assassin" for wearing camouflage, army print hoodie and dark glasses courtside at this Open. She did not see her father doing the motion.
A CHANCE meeting has led to an offer of help from renowned Australian coach Ian Barclay and his son to Australia's Russian recruit, Anastasia Rodionova, who on Monday officially will become the nation's fourth-ranked woman player.
SERENA Williams did not identify the problem, but admitted that she had one. "I was having some issues, but I don't like to make excuses — we won't discuss those," said Williams, many hours after a puzzling 6-3, 6-4 quarter-final loss to Jelena Jankovic abruptly ended her Australian Open defence.Later, the eight-time grand slam champion confessed that "I was definitely feeling it, I would say throughout the whole match from the first game". But feeling what? When did the injury, if that is what it was, arise? The ever-contrary Williams then conceded that Jankovic had played better. "I made too many errors. I think, regardless, the match was on my racquet, and I gave it away."
FIVE journalists crammed into the smallest room at the Australian Open media area yesterday to hear what a skinny teenager with a barely broken voice thought of his second-round juniors game.This was more than half an hour after the match, mind you, Bernard Tomic having done two television interviews beforehand.
FITTINGLY, it was Novak Djokovic who put the unpalatable topic on the table. Having just put Lleyton Hewitt’s weary tournament to bed, the Serbian upstart made a far larger statement about Hewitt’s long-term successor: that the players believed Roger Federer, No.1 for 207 consecutive weeks, was vulnerable.
Rafael Nadal has just entered the 132nd week of his record roost on the second rung of men's tennis; nobody since the ATP rankings began in 1973 has played second banana for so long. The top rung is within reach, but for now the Spaniard-in-waiting is happy to be somewhere else he has never gone before.
JELENA Jankovic fancies herself as something of an actor. It would be a knock-kneed director watching her ascend the balcony to perform the money scene from Romeo and Juliet.
THERE are many forms of bridesmaid. Rafael Nadal has been No. 2 for longer than he would care to remember — more than 2½ years. Jelena Jankovic has never been No. 2, not quite.
I'M HAPPY to be playing in the afternoon today. Getting up early on Monday was a struggle. I felt sleepy before the match and was short of energy after just an hour of play.
DOMINATING centre court and the TV screens of the nation, Lleyton Hewitt steamed out of the Australian Open last night. Film star Nicole Kidman and her country-singing husband Keith Urban caused a flurry of excitement in the court-bound paps, eager to shoot something that wasn't sweaty or hitting something. Kidman departed shortly before Hewitt lost the first set in a tie-break. Urban was summoned by mobile phone (a no-no at the court) and also departed in the break. Klim also appeared to be absent after the first set.An average national audience of 1,830,009 tuned in - 518,176 viewers in Sydney and a larger figure of 648,562 watching in Melbourne.
At its peak, 2,225,216 Australians watched the coverage (598,018 in Sydney, 774,237 in Melbourne). More than 61.5 per cent of people watching commercial TV in Melbourne were watching the game.
IT took a Little Miss Perfect performance from Maria Sharapova last night to whack Justine Henin off the perch she has occupied for six months since her last loss at Wimbledon in July.
ACCORDING to Novak Djokovic, the game has changed. Where Roger Federer once had most rivals beaten before he hit a ball, a genuine hunt is now taking place on Rod Laver Arena.
Federer is still the best player but tennis is no longer his plaything. "The players start to feel he is beatable," Djokovic said.
WHEN Lleyton Hewitt wakes today, his body will ache and this year's Australian Open will be no more than a blur. As Hewitt explained recently, nothing goes as quickly as a Grand Slam and nothing can quite prepare you for the physical toll it leaves."I don't know how many times, right after a Grand Slam, I have hit the wall," Hewitt said. "For three or four days you are knackered. It is amazing how much it takes out of you. Your body just needs three days of nothing to get back on track."
FOR the briefest of moments yesterday, Jarkko Nieminen sent a chill down the spines of Australian Open organisers.The Finn, a gutsy player of substance more than style, held two set points against world No2 Rafael Nadal at 5-4 in the battle of the lefties after out-thinking the Spaniard for much of the first set.
BEWARE the wounded animal. Jelena Jankovic won't detail the injuries she carries into her semi-final tomorrow but admits she has pain in many parts of her body.What she won't admit to herself, during a match at least, is that they hurt enough to stop her fighting her way further than she ever imagined after she came into the tournament under-prepared.
SHE did not serve well, she did not move well. She says she went a bit silly.
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