Sharapova wins Australian Open

When Maria Sharapova walked on court for the Australian Open final, she kept thinking about the sage advice of another champion.

"Champions take chances, and pressure is a privilege," Billie Jean King had written in a text message that Sharapova saw when she woke up.

"I took mine," fifth-ranked Sharapova said after beating Ana Ivanovic 7-5, 6-3 Saturday for her third Grand Slam title.

Sharapova, who didn't lose a set in seven matches, was clearly determined that nothing would stop her after winning only three games against Serena Williams in last year's final.

She was over a shoulder problem that plagued her last year. She was hitting winners with regularity. Her focus never wavered, even when her usually dependable serve briefly let her down.

She wasn't as sharp as when she ended top-ranked Justine Henin's 32-match winning streak in the quarterfinals or beat No. 3 Jelena Jankovic in the semifinals. But there was no doubt she deserved to win.

"I did the things I needed to do in order to win the match," Sharapova said, making it sound a lot more simple than it was.

Ivanovic, who at 20 is the same age as Sharapova and will rise to No. 2 when the new rankings come out, was left to find a silver lining.

"I'm still young and I still think I have a lot of Grand Slam finals in front of me," she said. "It hurts a bit now, but I'm sure I can learn from it."

Now Serbia's hopes for a title here rest with No. 3 Novak Djokovic, who faces unseeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France, the tournament's big surprise, in the men's final Sunday evening.

Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram became the first Israeli doubles pairing to win a Grand Slam when they outlasted Michael Llodra and Arnaud Clement 7-5 7-6 (4) Saturday.

Sharapova's 2004 Wimbledon title made her only the second Russian woman to win a major — just weeks after Anastasia Myskina captured the French Open.

Her win over Ivanovic was the fifth major by a Russian woman.

Sharapova first met King, winner of 39 singles and doubles Grand Slam titles, at a juniors tournament when she was 13 or 14.

"From that point on, she's just always been really supportive," Sharapova said. "She's always one of the first people to text me when either I'm having a tough moment or a great win."

She woke up to King's inspirational text message.

"I had those great words in my mind during the match," she said, adding that when it was over, she got another message: "Congratulations. You did great."

On a hot, mostly sunny day, Sharapova retreated to the shade behind the baselines between points. It was Australia Day, so organizers put small national flags at each seat, but there were plenty of Serbian and Russian flags, too.

Both players showed some nerves; Sharapova was simply more consistent. She had only two more winners than Ivanovic, but less than half as many as the Serbian's 33 unforced errors.

"I knew I had to be aggressive, and that type of game will obviously cause more mistakes," Ivanovic said.

Serving at 2-2 in the first set, Ivanovic set up double break point with a double fault, then sent a forehand long.

After holding serve the first three times at love, Sharapova committed three double faults while serving at 4-3 to hand the game to Ivanovic.

She shrugged off the setback, running off the last three games, rallying from 0-30 as she served for the set.

"I didn't get impatient," Sharapova said. "She's two points away from winning the first set in a Grand Slam final. If you want it, take it. And she didn't."

From 3-3 in the second set, Sharapova ran off the last three games again, breaking Ivanovic for the fourth time to finish the match.

Sharapova dropped to her knees and appeared to be fighting back tears as she waved and blew kisses to the crowd. She shook hands and exchanged high fives with her father and supporters.

Sharapova wished her mother, Yelena, a happy birthday and told her how she planned to spend some of her $1.2 million in prize money.

"With this big, fat check, I'm going to send you a bunch of roses," she said. "Last year I lost on her birthday and this year I said I'm going to make it up to her, and I did."

The Russian star said when her coach and hitting partner Michael Joyce's mother died, it helped her cope with the hard times.

Every time she went out to play or practice "Jane was the name we were thinking about," Sharapova said. "I want to dedicate this win to her because after the loss (Joyce) suffered, I got a whole lot of perspective with my injuries and setbacks.

"It helped me prioritize so many things that were outside of tennis."

Kuerten will retire after French Open

Three-time French Open champion Gustavo "Guga" Kuerten will retire from professional tennis after playing at Roland Garros this year.

Kuerten will enter only six tournaments in 2008 before ending his 14-year career, the Brazilian said in a news conference on Tuesday.

"I reached my limit because of my physical condition," Kuerten said. "I wanted to keep playing, participating in the important tournaments. I think I still could play for two or three years if it weren't for the physical part."

A chronic hip injury that needed operations in 2002 and 2004 restricted the lanky Kuerten to only 26 ATP-level matches since late 2004.

Kuerten said the hip injury kept him from playing his best.

"I believe my best years were ahead of me after 2001," he said. "Another two years or so playing competitively and I think I would get closer to results that would put me among the best of all time."

Brazil's only Grand Slam singles winner intends on playing in next month's Brasil Open, three Masters Series tournaments and a challenger before the French Open, which starts on May 25.

He said he will also try to play in his third Olympics.

"I just want to enjoy this year," he said. "Enjoy each of these final tournaments I'll play."

The 31-year-old began his pro career in 1995, and earned his greatest success on the red clay at Roland Garros, where he was champion in 1997, 2000 and 2001.

"It always was my favorite tournament," he said. "It would be a perfect goodbye if I could win the title there this year, but we know it's complicated."

Kuerten defeated former champions Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Thomas Muster and Sergi Bruguera to win his first pro title at the 1997 French, becoming the second-lowest ranked Grand Slam champion at 66. In 2000, he had to save 11 match points to top Magnus Norman in the final. He charmed Paris in his successful 2001 defense, carving a heart in the dirt after the final.

He reached No. 1 in 2000 and became the first South American in ATP rankings history to finish the year on top. His limited play has dropped him to 679th.

Along with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, Kuerten is the only active player with three or more Grand Slam titles.

Among the best in the world in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he won 20 of the 29 singles finals he played. The last was in February 2004 on home ground at Costa do Sauipe.

Last year, Kuerten said for the first time that he would retire from the tour if he failed to be competitive in 2008.

"I was very happy playing tennis," Kuerten said. "I surpassed my expectations in all aspects, always with the same pleasure on the court. I was fortunate to find something I loved to do in life and do it."

The Brazilian said he will continue to be involved with tennis after retiring, and will work more actively with the Guga Kuerten Institute, which promotes social projects.

Kuerten has a 358-191 career singles record, with 181 of those wins on clay.

In recent years he was a reserve and a doubles player for Brazil in Davis Cup, a competition in which he has a 34-18 record.

Roddick wins 3rd Melbourne title in row

Andy Roddick won his third consecutive Kooyong Classic title and said he'd happily exchange them all for one at the Australian Open. The American defeated Marcos Baghdatis 7-5, 6-3 Saturday in the warmup to the Australian Open.

"Is there a three-for-one special deal — 3 AAMIs for an Aussie Open?" Roddick joked with the crowd, excusing himself if he sounded ungrateful.

Roddick beat top-ranked Roger Federer at the Kooyong exhibition last year, then lost a lopsided semifinal to the Swiss star at the Australian Open.

He did not drop a set this year as he matched Michael Chang's three straight titles from 1995. Andre Agassi won three titles in four years in a streak broken by Pete Sampras in 2002.

Now, Roddick wants to improve his record at the Australian Open, where his best results have been semifinals appearances in '05 and '07.

"I'm still young and hungry at 25," Roddick said.

He helped the United States win the Davis Cup last month, and is hoping the momentum will end a run of 16 majors without a title since his lone Grand Slam win at the 2003 U.S. Open.

"It was great to win that Davis Cup — to get to feel something like that so recently makes you want to win even more," he said.

Roddick started and finished with aces against Baghdatis, who was runner-up to Federer in the 2006 Australian Open.

The 22-year-old Cypriot was a late inclusion in the eight-man invitational draw at Kooyong after Federer withdrew because of a stomach illness.

Baghdatis has a tough opening week at Melbourne Park, facing 2002 champion Thomas Johansson in the opening round in a difficult section of the draw that also includes 2005 champion Marat Safin, 2005 finalist Lleyton Hewitt and No. 3-ranked Novak Djokovic.

"I know it's a bit tough, but life is tough — at least, my life was tough — so I guess I have to accept it and deal with it and try to do as best as I can," Baghdatis said. "I had good preparation here, played three guys in the Top 10, which is a great way to prepare for a Grand Slam. I'm ready for the Open."

Roddick, in the same half of the Australian Open draw as No. 2 Rafael Nadal, plays qualifier Lukas Dlouhy of the Czech Republic in a first-round match Monday, with the possibility of meeting 18-year-old American Donald Young in the second.

He did not drop a service game in wins here over Ivan Ljubicic, Safin and Baghdatis. He fired 10 aces on Saturday and says he's close to the top of his game.

"Getting through an event like this and not getting broken is a pretty good effort ... hopefully it's indicative of what I can do in the next couple of weeks," Roddick said. "Winning this event just means I'm well prepared for the Aussie Open."

Roddick broke Baghdatis' serve in the 12th game of the first set after a small blip in the 11th, when he wasted three game points with forehand errors and disputed a line call on what he thought was an ace.

He broke Baghdatis' second service game in the second set and closed out at love with an ace.

Safin, the only man to beat Federer at Melbourne Park in four years, finished off his preparations for the season's first major with a 6-3, 6-3 win earlier Saturday in the third-place match against Fernando Gonzalez, a finalist at last year's Australian Open.

No. 7 Gonzalez is seeded to meet Federer in the quarterfinals at the Australian Open.

Federer will begin his bid for a third consecutive Australian title without a competitive match in the leadup.

Serena, Maria fit for Australian Open

Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova aren't too concerned about Justine Henin's 28-match winning streak.

Both reckon they can beat anyone if they're at the top of their game, and they believe that's right where they are heading into the season's first Grand Slam.

Williams, the defending Australian Open champion, is so focused that she hadn't even checked Saturday who her first-round opponent will be. (For the record, it's Jarmila Gajdosova, a Slovakia native who has adopted Australia as her home country.)

"I really just focus on what I need to do and what I need to do right," said Williams, seeking her ninth Grand Slam title. "If I can do it right, then I'll have positive results."

Last year, Williams came to Melbourne as a question mark, unseeded after a rash of injuries and the subject of painful questions about her weight, fitness and preparation. She still managed to win, largely on her defiant refusal to lose. She beat six seeded players along the way, including Sharapova in the final.

"I was completely under the radar," Williams said. "I had absolutely no expectations from anyone, and that really made me want to kind of prove everyone wrong."

This time, Williams won't take anyone by surprise, with her ranking back up to No. 7 and her sights set on regaining the top spot. And she clearly is in better shape, appearing in a bright red top and dripping diamond-encrusted jewelry for her pre-tournament news conference.

"It's definitely probably the fittest I've been in a while — maybe," Williams said with a smile. "My body will allow anything really. It's ready for anything. My preparation's been really good. I've been just training every day and just getting out there on the court every day.

"I don't feel any pressure at all. I feel just excited to be here. I don't feel like, 'Oh, my God, I have to win, win, win.' I just feel like I'm having so much fun every day. Obviously, I always come in thinking, 'I want to go all the way and I want to win.' I have that potential. We'll see what happens."

While she said Henin clearly deserves the No. 1 ranking, Williams claims she is more worried about the threat from her practice partner, sister Venus. Together, they ruled women's tennis before injuries piled up.

"She's playing unbelievable," Serena said of her eighth-ranked sister. "She gets every ball back."

Like the Williams sisters, Sharapova is excited about the Australian Open after a year fighting nagging injuries.

"I had a really good off-season, injury free," Sharapova said. "I worked really hard. I put a lot of dedication into it. Waking up every single morning, I was looking forward to practice, getting better. It was really refreshing because after a pretty difficult year, it was great to be able to play tennis for such a long period of time without feeling concerned or worried about getting injured."

Sharapova said her only concern "is just to take care of my business on my side of the net."

"I don't think you can ever count me out. No matter how confident or not, no matter where my ranking is, I'm one of the toughest competitors out there. I never leave the court without giving 100 percent. It's what I love to do."

The draw presents Sharapova with a potentially interesting second-round match against Lindsay Davenport, who won in Auckland last week for her third title in four events since giving birth last June to her first child, son Jagger.

Then again, Sharapova said the depth in the women's game is as good as ever.

"Apart from Justine, who has been pretty dominant, especially towards the end of last year, I think there are a few girls that last year was their first year that they had really good results," she said. "Both of the Williams are always dangerous. And also you can never underestimate those that are hungry to be in the top 20 or to be in the top 10."

Still, Sharapova reckons her best tennis is yet to come. It's easy to forget she's only 20 years old, because she won her first Grand Slam at age 17 at Wimbledon, then added the U.S. Open in 2006.

"I've grown and I've become a much more experienced player. Like I say, with every win and every loss, you learn so much more about your game and what you need to improve," she said. "And I've had some good wins, I had some tough losses in the last three years since my victory in London.

"But honestly it seemed like a long time ago. I'm due for another one up there."

Ill Federer pulls out of warmup

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Roger Federer has a severe stomach virus and has pulled out of an exhibition tournament less than a week away from the Australian Open.

Federer told officials at the Kooyong Classic on Monday that he became ill after arriving in Australia last Friday from his training base in Dubai.

"It continued to get worse over the weekend," the top-ranked Federer said. "After trying to practice on Saturday afternoon, I went to see the doctors and they immediately performed a series of tests. The doctors have advised me that I should take a couple of days off and recuperate so that I am able to be 100 percent for the start of the Australian Open."

Federer, aiming for his third straight Australian Open title, hopes to resume training by Wednesday or Thursday. The eight-man Kooyong Classic exhibition tournament begins Wednesday.

Tournament officials also said that Germany's Tommy Haas has withdrawn. He had recent shoulder surgery for a chronic injury, and it has not recovered in time. Haas said he still hopes to be ready for the Australian Open, which begins Jan. 14.

Russia's Nikolay Davydenko has been picked as one replacement player at Kooyong, with another to be named later.

Others in the Kooyong field are Andy Roddick, Fernando Gonzalez, Andy Murray, David Nalbandian, Ivan Ljubicic and Marat Safin.

Youzhny upsets No. 2 Nadal in Chennai

Rafael Nadal, fatigued from a nearly 4-hour match the previous day, was routed by fourth-seeded Mikhail Youzhny 6-0, 6-1 Sunday in the final of the Chennai Open.

The 19th-ranked Youzhny clinched the fourth title of his career by shocking No. 2 Nadal, who managed to hold his service just once.

The 57-minute contest turned out to be a letdown for Nadal, who needed 3 hours, 54 minutes to overcome fellow Spaniard Carlos Moya in what was the longest three-set match on the ATP Tour in 15 years.

"Maybe I was a bit tired after the long semifinal, but I lost the final because Mikhail played very well," said Nadal, who hasn't won a title since July.

The error-prone Nadal saw his hopes of starting the year with a title vanish as the Russian hit winners from the baseline and executed deft drops. Nadal's only hold came in the second game of the second set.

"Rafa was not Rafa," Youzhny said. "I did not win today, it was Rafa who lost. I did not expect it to be so easy. I was lucky as he just couldn't move and couldn't play."

Nadal took a medical time-out during the second set, but said he had no fitness problem.

"I had no injury, just wanted the trainer's help in overcoming tiredness," he said. "I lost in the semifinal last year and have now played the final. Next year, I'll win the title here."

Youzhny defeated defending champion Xavier Malisse in the quarterfinals, and unseeded teenager Marin Cilic in the semifinals.

Nadal leads their head-to-head series 6-4.

US defeats Serbia to win 5th Hopman Cup

Serena Williams and Mardy Fish beat Jelena Jankovic and Novak Djokovic 7-6 (5), 6-2 Friday to give the United States its fifth title in the Hopman Cup mixed team tennis tournament.

An upper right leg injury to Jankovic — and subsequent walkover by Williams in the opening women's singles — had given the Americans a 1-0 lead over top-seeded Serbia hours before the scheduled start of the final Friday.

Djokovic, despite receiving treatment for a sore right shoulder, then beat Fish 6-2, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (4) to keep Serbia in contention.

But the Americans' mixed doubles victory — coming back from being down 4-1 in the opening set — clinched the title in the eight-nation tournament. It was the ninth time the Americans had qualified for the final in the Hopman Cup's 20 years.

"The Serbian team, they really deserve a big round of applause because they were both fighting with injury," said Williams, who begins defense of her Australian Open singles title on Jan. 14 in Melbourne.

Williams won the Hopman Cup title for the U.S. with James Blake in 2003.

Jankovic pulled out of both her singles matches on the previous two days at the tournament, and in both cases, she came back to win the clinching mixed doubles with Djokovic — against France on Wednesday and Argentina on Thursday.

"Obviously you saw my condition today, and you're going to see us in wheelchairs in the mixed doubles," Djokovic joked.

"But we're fighters, so we managed to survive the last two days. As professional athletes, you always want to win when you are on the court, and you saw that today."

Tournament doctor Hamish Osborne said Jankovic would not be able to play two matches because she would need extended medical treatment after her singles match.

"The treatment she has been receiving is painful and she will be far better off preparing for the doubles, which is much less strenuous," Osborne said.

The Americans and Serbia each finished the round-robin portion of the tournament with 3-0 records to lead their groups and qualify for the final.

Sharapova: Women's tennis is clean

Maria Sharapova said Saturday she believed women's tennis is taking the necessary measures to remain clean amid allegations of match-fixing and illegal betting in the men's game.

"The women's game is very clean," the fifth-ranked player said one day before an exhibition match with her sixth-ranked Russian compatriot, Anna Chakvetadze.

Sharapova, 20, said WTA Tour chief executive and chairman Larry Scott "is doing all the things possible, from having meetings throughout the year to encouraging players to be safe and smart about their choices.

"Unfortunately we have to be realistic about the fact that some of these things do go on ... but at the end of the day I believe that women's tennis is doing a great job of being clean," Sharapova said.

Concerns about match-fixing in men's tennis have risen since August, when an online betting company reported unusual betting patterns during a match between fourth-ranked Nikolay Davydenko of Russia and Martin Vassallo Arguello of Argentina. Since then, several players have said they were approached with offers to fix matches for money.

The ATP, which recently introduced new anti-corruption rules, suspended Italians Potito Starace and Daniele Bracciali for making bets on tennis matches involving other players.

Sharapova also welcomed the new surface that the upcoming Australian Open will be played on. Organizers of the 2008 event, the year's first tennis major, have replaced the cushioned Rebound Ace courts at Melbourne Park with firmer Plexicushion.

"Especially in extreme heat, the court gets very sticky and a lot of injuries can occur," Sharapova said. "So I'm very excited about it and it will be good to have a good week of practice before to get used to it."

The new Plexicushion surface is expected to produce a lower ball bounce than Rebound Ace. Organizers also expect the new surface will retain less heat, which makes it better suited to Australian conditions.