Black Tennis Pros

Session 5 - USA 3 defeating Czech Republic 0

• Serena Williams d Lucie Safarova 6-0, 2-6, 7-5 (Time: 111 minutes, Umpire: Alison Lang)
• Williams/Fish d Safarova/Berdych 6-0 retired
• Mardy Fish d Tomas Berdych 6-0, 6-0 walkover
  
  

Lucie Safarova has been unwell for a couple of days and Tomas Berdych pulled up with a stomach virus overnight, forcing the mixed doubles to be played before the men’s singles in order to give him the best chance of recovering.

The world No. 14 managed to make it onto court for the doubles, but Berdych was clearly hampered by his illness as Serena Williams and Mardy Fish took the first set 6-0.

Berdych then decided he could not continue, giving the Americans a 3-0 win for the tie.

The United States are now ideally placed to make its ninth final and the chance at a fifth win at the Hyundai Hopman Cup when it plays Australia on Thursday.

The 112-minute battle with Serena wasn’t what Safarova would have hoped for if she was not feeling well, but she took it right up to the world No. 7 and current Australian Open champion.

Serena made an amazing start after missing her opening match on Saturday and being in Perth just a day before taking on Safarova. However, no jetlag problems were evident as she blew Safarova off the court to take the opening set 6-0.

Safarova isn’t ranked 23 in the world by chance, though, and she fought back tremendously to take the second 6-2 and force a third and deciding set.

While the first two sets were lopsided either way, the decider was a real fight. Safarova broke first to go to a 4-2 lead, but Serena broke back straight away to take it to 4-4.

Serena then showed that she is in tremendous shape and form by breaking Safarova to go up 6-5, then held serve to win the gruelling tussle.

Fish and Williams were well on top in the only set of the doubles, with Berdych in particular struggling with his fitness.


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In her usual down-to-the-wire style, Serena Williams pulls out another win for the USA at Hopman Cup.





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Serena Williams and Lucie Safarova are currently representing the USA and the Czech Republic in this year's Hopman Cup. The ladies are current playing in the fifth session and tied at one set each. The first set went to Serena Williams who demolished Safarova 6-0. Safarova obviously awakened and found her game, defeating Serena 6-2. They are currently in the third on serve with Safarova leading 2-1 as of 9:52 p.m. eastern time.

Serena Williams arrived late, but arrival of Grand Slam queen Serena Williams at Perth’s Hyundai Hopman Cup has enabled the USA to go into their clash with the Czech Republic with added confidence.

The last match of 2007 sees the world No. 7 take on rising star Lucie Safarova, who has halved her ranking to 23 in the year since she made her Hyundai Hopman Cup debut.

The USA is seeded No. 2 for this year’s event, behind hot favourites Serbia and goes into the match with one victory to their credit, helped by substitute American Meghann Shaughnessy, who paired with Mardy Fish to beat India on Saturday.

Williams, a winner of the Hyundai Hopman Cup with James Blake five years ago, arrived in Perth overnight and had a hit on the practice court on Sunday afternoon after the long flight from Florida.

She has assured Tournament Director Paul McNamee that she had shrugged off a brief illness and her combination with Fish – who played extremely well in his 6-2, 6-4 win over India’s Rohan Bopanna in the opening match.

The third seeded Czechs were upset by Australia on Saturday night, when Alicia Molik and debutant Peter Luczak combined brilliantly in the doubles to down Safarova and her boyfriend, the 14th ranked Tomas Berdych.

The Czechs conceded that they need to do a little work on their doubles, having not won a rubber at last summer’s Hyundai Hopman Cup, with Berdych admitting it wasn’t his strong point.

“I didn’t help Lucie enough to win today,” he said. “I think the male partner needs to do more in the mixed, but that’s not my style, especially when we play normal tennis. I have to improve.”

Berdych, a winner of three singles titles on the men’s Tour, has secured his place in the upper echelons of world rankings, but has his sights set on a top-10 spot in the coming 2008 year.

His American opponent, Fish, has spent another year recovering from injury, this time damaging ankle ligaments in a friendly burst of grid iron.

However, he finished the year ranked at 39 and a strong showing against Berdych will boost his confidence for the year ahead.

The session begins at 10:30am on Monday.

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Single-session tickets for all 22 sessions of the 2008 Sony Ericsson Open will go on sale beginning at 9 a.m. on January 2. Fans can purchase tickets by calling the Sony Ericsson Open Ticket Office at (305) 442-3367 or by going online at www.sonyericssonopen.com.

The 24th Sony Ericsson Open is scheduled for March 26-April 6 and will feature the top 96 men and women tennis players in the world. The tournament will once again be held at the Tennis Center at Crandon Park located on beautiful Key Biscayne.

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Think working up a sweat playing Nintendo Wii Tennis is a substitute for exercise, think again. Wii jocks will have to hit the treadmill like everyone else if they want to stay fit.

According to a study by the British Medical Journal, while the Wii provides more activity than passive videogames it is still no replacement for getting some good old fashioned exercise.

Wii is unlike other video game consoles out there. A standard videogame only requires players to move their thumbs and index fingers, whereas the Wii actually requires players to move their hand or occasionally their entire arm to interact with the game. The Wii console has done much to get couch potatoes off their duff and playing video games – but apparently not enough.

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Serena Williams' new tennis season will start like several of her past - with an injury affecting her preparation for the first Grand Slam event.

The winner of last year's Australian Open, Serena will miss the United States' opening match at the Hopman Cup in Perth, organizers said Thursday. The American star is trying to recover from a lingering left knee injury that forced her to pull out of the WTA Tour's season-ending championships in Madrid in November. She had been scheduled to take on India's Sania Mirza on Saturday in the first match of the team event, but will be replaced by Meghan Shaughnessy.

Tournament officials said Serena will not arrive in the Western Australia state capital until the weekend, and plans to play for the Americans in Monday's match against the Czech Republic. Player substitutions are allowed between matches.

After an injury-filled 2006, Serena had an incredible win at the 2007 Australian Open - unseeded, ranked No. 81 and beating six seeded players en route to the title. By the end of the season, she was ranked No. 7.

Serena first injured her left knee in 2000 and had surgery in 2003, forcing her to pull out of all events after Wimbledon that year.

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Lawd Jeezus! Is there no rest for the weary? Here it is Christmas Eve and F1-ToGo has tagged me with the Entrecard meme! And being the ever rule following automaton that I am, alas, I had to acquiesce. F1-ToGo has quickly become one of my favorites. From my first stop at this site I loved the appearance, organization and great use of photos and graphics. And I knew nothing about F1! I was so intrigued with the site that I Googled F1 so that I could quickly school myself sufficent to know what's going on. It's definitely worth a visit.

Okay, on to the meme which, by the way, was started by Sam. (I'll be writing him a strongly worded note of thanks, HA!).

The Entrecard meme:
Shameless self promotion and shameless promotion of other blogs participating in Entrecard advertising is what it’s about. Daily we tap the mouse button or the touch pad and drop cards and advertise and now with a little bit more time, (which, seeing as we read blogs all day, lol, we can afford) we can help each other out with this meme. Just follow along below and have some fun.

• Read these instructions twice;
• Drop your EntreCard at this site;
• Drop your EntreCard at the 5 EntreCard users’ sites listed below;
• Choose 5 other EntreCard users;
• Copy these instructions to your own Entrecard meme article and tag (link) those 5 people;
• Include a link to the Entrecard meme article of the person who tagged you;
• Link to the original article “Sam Freedom’s Drop Squad - the First Entrecard Meme Known to Bloggers“;
• Notify the people you choose that they’ve been tagged;
• Comment below so even passers-by can drop their card at your site, too (it shows you are active and will likely return the favor)
• (optional) IF you tag your blogs, use both “entrecard” and “entrecard meme” as tags so that others can find them AND so that we can find them all later as this grows. (If you don’t know what tagging is, don’t worry.)

Here are the Entrecard users tagged by me:

Debo Hobo Dot Com This is a wonderful travel resource site that I am very familiar with, and both the site and owner are great. I fly a lot and now consult this site often for the latest in all aspects of travel.

NetInfoWeb 2.0: Soul, R&B, Jazz and Blues on the 'Net In the short time that I have been participating with Entrecard, I have already met some great people. One of them being the owner of this site. As a staunch jazz and classic R&B lover, this site has quickly become one of my new favs. There's a great lineup of Christmas music over there, don't let it pass you by.

Cook-Italian-Way Once again, great cooking blog, great owner. This blog does a wonderful job with recipes and great photos of completed dishes.

Article Specialist I'm continuing to bat 1,000. Another great blog and great owner. This marketing blog has some very informative and useful maketing information.

General Marketing Blog I've recently become aware of this blog and I like what I've seen thus far. It has wonderful presentation and informative concise posts.

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