Rafael Nadal speed up into 3rd round

DEFENDING champion Rafael Nadal secured his second straight-sets win to progress to the third round of the Australian Open.
The Spanish second seed needed one hour and 53 minutes to brush aside Slovakia's Lukas Lacko 6-2, 6-2, 6-2 on Rod Laver Arena.

It was a convincing display from Nadal, who showed no signs of the early nerves from his first-round match against Peter Luczak.

"I think I played the match that I needed to play," said Nadal. "I played more relaxed. The second round always is easier to play. I think I improved a little bit, but I can still play a little bit longer."

Nadal will meet a seed for the first time in the next round after Germany's Philipp Kohlschreiber (27) defeated Wayne Odesnik 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Seventh seed Andy Roddick cruised past Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 and next in his way is Feliciano Lopez after the Spaniard beat 2003 finalist Rainer Schuettler 6-3, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Roddick continued his clashes with officialdom when he questioned an umpiring decision on match point. The seventh seed had clashed with a line umpire in his first round match. Yesterday, Roddick held match point at 40-15 when a ball from Bellucci was adjudged to be in after review by the Hawk-Eye replay system.

The big-serving American then produced what he thought was an ace to seal the victory, only for Bellucci to challenge the call. Hawk-Eye determined the ball to be 'out', forcing Roddick to make a second serve. However, Bellucci belted a forehand long in the subsequent rally to finally hand Roddick the 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 win.

The victor then argued with chair umpire Fergus Murphy afterwards. "There was just a disagreement about a rule I guess on a continuation of a call," Roddick explained.

"To be fair, I didn't come in here until I watched the video of it. I was more wrong than I thought I was out on court. That being said, it was very close."

In the last match of the day, 14th seed Marin Cilic was taken the distance by Australian teenager Bernard Tomic 6-7 (6/8), 6-3, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, with play not finishing until after 2am local time.

Federer drops set but wins opener at Australian Open

The last time Roger Federer played at Rod Laver Arena, he left in tears after losing the Australian Open final to Rafael Nadal a year ago.

There were no such waterworks Tuesday, just a few tense moments for the Swiss star seeking his 16th Grand Slam title in a 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 (7-2), 6-0 win over Igor Andreev of Russia in the first round at Melbourne, Australia.

Federer lost the first set after leading by a break, then saved three set points in the 12th game of the third set before winning the tiebreaker and dominating the fourth set.

Last year, Federer shed tears after having missed his first chance to equal Pete Sampras' 14 Grand Slam titles -- a feat he later achieved and surpassed with wins at the French Open and Wimbledon.

No. 7 Andy Roddick had a 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 win over Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci.

In women's matches, sixth-seeded Venus Williams beat Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic, 6-2, 6-2, and Melanie Oudin, the 18-year-old American who made a surprising run to last year's U.S. Open quarterfinals, lost her first-round match, 2-6, 7-5, 7-5, to Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia. Svetlana Kuznetsova became the first player into the third round with a 6-2, 6-2 win today over fellow Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Auto racing: Tony George's separation from the management of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is complete. George, ousted as CEO in June, resigned from the board of directors that oversees the speedway and the family business, Hulman & Co. The move was announced in a statement by George's mother, Mari Hulman George, who chairs the board. The Hulman-George family has run the speedway, home of the Indy 500, for six decades. George, who was the speedway's president for 20 years and formed the IRL in 1994, was removed last year amid job cuts and concerns about his spending on upgrades at the speedway.

Maria Sharapova's latest Bio-data and her Early life

Maria Yuryevna Sharapova (born April 19, 1987) is Russian born, former World No. 1 professional tennis player and three time Grand Slam singles champion. As of October 26, 2009, she is ranked World No. 14.

When Sharapova was six, she and her father moved from their life of poverty in Russia to the United States, to enroll her in the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy. After rising rapidly through the junior and professional ranks in the years that followed, Sharapova won her first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon in 2004 at the age of 17. In the two years that followed, Sharapova won eight titles on the WTA Tour and had two brief stints as the World No. 1. However, she lost all five Grand Slam semifinals she played during this period. She ultimately won her second Grand Slam title at the 2006 US Open.

In 2007, a right shoulder injury forced Sharapova to withdraw from numerous tournaments. This injury was partially responsible for her dropping out of the top five on the WTA world rankings for the first time in three years. Although she won her third Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in early 2008 and returned to the World No. 1 position later in the year, her shoulder needed surgery in October 2008. Sharapova was away from the sport for ten months until May 2009, which caused her ranking to drop out of the top 100. Since returning, Sharapova's ranking has recovered to within the top 15.

Sharapova's public profile extends beyond tennis. She has been featured in a number of modeling assignments, including a feature in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Sharapova was the most searched-for athlete on Yahoo! in both 2005 and 2008. In July 2008, as a result of her success both on and off court, she was the world's highest-paid female athlete, earning US$26 million.^[5] Since February 2007, she has been a United Nations Development Project Goodwill Ambassador, concerned specifically with efforts in Chernobyl to recover from the 1986 nuclear disaster.

Early life

Sharapova was born in 1987 to Yuri and Elena, ethnic Russians, in the town of Nyagan' in Siberia, Russia. Her parents moved from Gomel, Belarus after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 affected the region. When Sharapova was two, the family moved to Sochi where her father befriended Aleksandr Kafelnikov, whose son Yevgeny would go on to win two Grand Slam singles titles and become Russia's first ever World No. 1 tennis player. Aleksandr gave Sharapova her first tennis racket at the age of four, whereupon she began practicing regularly with her father in a local park.

At the age of six, Sharapova attended a tennis clinic in Moscow run by Martina Navrátilová, who recommended professional training at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida, which had previously trained players such as Andre Agassi, Monica Seles and Anna Kournikova. Sharapova and her father, neither of whom could speak English, moved to Florida in 1994. Visa restrictions prevented Sharapova's mother from joining them for two years. Sharapova's father took various low-paying jobs, including dish washing, to fund her lessons before she was admitted to the academy. In 1995, she was signed by IMG and finally enrolled in the academy.

The most greatest Tennis players put Tennis Rivalries Aside for Haiti Fundraiser

Jan.17(Bloomberg)-Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters put their Australian Open rivalries aside to raise funds for earthquake relief efforts in Haiti.
Nine players, led by top-ranked Federer and Williams, took to Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena on the eve of the season-opening tennis Grand Slam for an exhibition to raise money to help victims of the Jan. 12 temblor, which may have left as many as 100,000 people dead in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country.
The initiative, the brainchild of Federer, helped generate at least A$500,000 ($461,388), Tennis Australia said. Fans snapped up 17,000 A$10 tickets for the 90-minute event and the men’s and women’s tours, International Tennis Federation, Grand Slam Committee and Tennis Australia topped up the amount raised from collections at Melbourne Park.

“Yesterday morning I thought we should do something and within twenty four hours we were able to pull this off,” Federer said at a news conference. “I am happy it was such a successful event.”

With all the players wearing microphones, the crowd was treated to plenty of trick shots and banter. Federer retrieved several balls between his legs, while Nadal put so much back- spin on one drop shot it landed back on his side of the net.

Andy Roddick, who’s in first-round action at the No. 7 seed tomorrow, provided comic relief when he was foot faulted by a line judge during the match, which was umpired by four-time Grand Slam champion Jim Courier.

Williams Warning

“You realize Serena’s over there, right?” Roddick warned the linesman, a reference to Williams’s tirade at a lineswoman at September’s U.S. Open.

Williams, the defending champion in Melbourne, took the joke in good spirits and laughed her way through several games of mixed doubles across the net from Clijsters, whom bookmakers rate as her main rival for the women’s singles title.

Novak Djokovic and Nadal, who both beat Federer on the way to winning the past two men’s championships, clowned around with the world No. 1 as they gave up practice time to participate. Nadal starts his title defense tomorrow.

The players were split into two mixed doubles teams, with members rotating in and out throughout the match. Team Red, featuring Federer, Williams and local favorites Lleyton Hewitt and Sam Stosur, won 7-6.

“We rarely see exhibition matches on a relaxed basis but when the top guys come together and we know we have a rough two weeks ahead of ourselves, it’s more about the talking and the touch and the interaction with the crowd,” Federer added. “It was a lot of fun. It’s a great thing.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Dan Baynes at Melbourne Park at dbaynes@bloomberg.net