MELBOURNE, Australia – Venus Williams was knocked out of the Australian Open with a 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 loss to unheralded Spanish player Carla Suarez Navarro in the second round.
Suarez Navarro, who reached the quarterfinals of last year's French Open, rallied from 5-2 down in the third and saved a match point before beating Williams.
The 20-year-old Suarez Navarro is playing in only her fourth Grand Slam tournament. Williams has won seven Grand Slam singles titles.
MELBOURNE, Australia – Roger Federer's road to tying Pete Sampras' record 14 Grand Slam singles titles goes through Marat Safin and Novak Djokovic.
And that's before he even reaches the final.
If he makes it, top-ranked Rafael Nadal or fourth-ranked Andy Murray are likely to be waiting. The two were drawn together on the top half and are possible semifinal rivals.
Federer starts with Andreas Seppi in the first round, then could face former No. 1 Carlos Moya in the second and 2005 winner Safin in the third. Defending champion Djokovic could be his semifinal opponent.
No. 7 seed Andy Roddick might meet Djokovic in the quarterfinals.
The women's draw ensured there'd be no all-Williams final, with sisters Serena and Venus on course to meet in the semis.
Second-seeded Serena, the U.S. Open champion, has won the Australian title every other year since beating Venus in the 2003 final.
"It'd be great to win it again. I'm not really superstitious," Serena Williams said this week. "Obviously I would like to win in 2009. To be honest I really wanted to win in 2008 but it didn't quite work out."
Sixth-seeded Venus, who won her fifth Wimbledon championship last year with a victory over Serena in the final, rounded out the year by winning the season-ending WTA Championship.
The Williams sisters loom as the top contenders with defending champion Maria Sharapova missing the tournament after months on the sidelines with an injured right shoulder.
Serena will open against Chinese wild card Yuan Meng and could face 2006 champion and former No. 1 Amelie Mauresmo in the fourth.
Venus Williams would have to get past Beijing Olympics singles gold medalist Elena Dementieva to reach the semifinals.
In the top half, fifth-seeded Ana Ivanovic, who lost the 2008 Australian final to Sharapova and then won the French Open, could face third-seeded Dinara Safina in the quarterfinals and fellow Serb and top-ranked Jelena Jankovic in the semis.
Safina and her older brother Safin combined to get Russia into the final of the Hopman Cup in Perth earlier this month.
Safin had an upset semifinal win over Federer before beating local favorite Lleyton Hewitt here in 2005, earning his first Australian crown after losing two finals at Melbourne Park.
Djokovic, a 21-year-old Serbian, beat Federer in the semifinals last year before winning his first major title with a victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France.
Tsonga had a stunning win over Nadal in the semis here last year and the pair could meet at the same stage again in two weeks — with Tsonga drawn into the same quarter as Murray.
Nadal beat Federer in the finals of the French Open and Wimbledon, then ended the Swiss star's record 237-week streak atop the rankings when he won the Olympic singles gold medal.
Nadal's first loss as No. 1 was to Murray in the U.S. Open semifinals. Murray lost to Federer in his first final of a major.
Murray has won the last three head-to-heads and is 5-2 career against Federer. He beat Federer and Nadal at an exhibition in Abu Dhabi to start the year and repeated the win over Federer in the semifinals at Doha, where the 21-year-old Scottish player defended his title.
Nadal faces Christophe Rochus in the first round and a possible fourth-round encounter with either two-time Grand Slam winner Hewitt or 2007 Australian runner-up Fernando Gonzalez, who meet in the most intriguing of the first-round matches.
He could play sixth-seeded Gilles Simon of France in the quarterfinals. Murray has Spanish Davis Cup champion Fernando Verdasco, No. 9 James Blake and Tsonga in his quarter of the draw.
Blake said despite Murray's recent form, it would be hard to predict Federer or Nadal not winning another title.
"The pick that a lot of people would come up with is Andy Murray. He's beaten Federer the last three times. He just won in Doha ... a young guy that keeps improving," Blake said at the draw. "But I'm never going to pick against Roger or Rafa. Those are the guys who have the best chances.
"Novak, it'll be interesting to see how he does coming back to defend a Grand Slam."
DOHA, Qatar – Andy Murray downplayed talk that he's the favorite heading into the Australian Open after his successful defense of the Qatar Open title.
The fourth-ranked Murray defeated No. 8 Andy Roddick 6-4, 6-2 Saturday to win his first ATP title of the year, and ninth overall.
En route to the title, the Scotsman beat Roger Federer in the semifinals. He also defeated Federer and top-ranked Rafael Nadal last week in an exhibition in Abu Dhabi.
With the Australian Open starting in Melbourne on Jan. 19, Murray heads into the first major of 2009 in fine form.
"I feel good going into the Australian Open but after what happened last year, I don't want to get too carried away," Murray said. "I am one of the top guys, but I don't know if I am the favorite at the Australian Open. There is Roger, Rafa and Novak (Djokovic), who won last year."
A year ago, Murray lost in the first round to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who eventually reached the final.
He travels to Australia after a convincing win against Roddick.
Murray broke Roddick to go up 3-2 in the opening set, and used two more breaks in the second to take a 4-1 lead. Roddick's only break-point chance came with Murray serving for the match, but the Scotsman saved it with an ace and clinched the title with a backhand winner down the line.
"He's in top form right now," Roddick said. "I think he is capable of winning the big ones."
Murray wasn't broken in the semifinals or final, and showed no sign of the back injury which bothered him against Federer.
"I am not close to my best tennis," Murray said. "But if I play my best tennis, then I can beat the top players."
Roddick was impressed with Murray, and seemed satisfied with his week in Qatar.
"He was hitting great balls," Roddick said. "But I am happy with my form. I made him beat me. I didn't give it away so easily. It was a successful week for me."
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates – In a strong statement leading to the Australian Open, Andy Murray has beaten Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal on consecutive days.
The Scotsman defeated the top-ranked Nadal 6-4, 5-7, 6-3 Saturday to capture the Capitala World Tennis Championship exhibition and $250,000 winner-take-all prize. A day earlier in the semifinals, he topped the No. 2-ranked Federer 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 (6).
The tournament, not part of the ATP Tour, included six of the world's top 10 players.
Murray, who put on more muscle during the offseason, is ranked No. 4 and has yet to win a Grand Slam. He has a chance to change that at the Australian Open, which starts starts Jan. 19.
"This victory was good before I go to Australia," said Murray, who will first defend his Qatar Open title in Doha. "I have never been past the fourth round there. I trained hard over the break and the victories over the past three days have given me confidence."
In the final set, Murray broke after a long seventh game and then held serve to go up 5-3. Murray covered the court well, running down every shot and breaking serve one more time.
"He has carried his form over the last four months and he has a good chance to win in Australia," Nadal said.
Murray's only previous victory over Nadal in six matches was at the U.S. Open semifinals in September. The Spaniard played 111 matches in 2008 and pulled out of the Davis Cup final against Argentina in November because of an injured knee.
Nadal called this an "amazing three days" and insisted he played well despite the loss.
"For me it was a very good test," he said. "Playing 2 hours, 45 minutes at the best level is good. I forgot about my knee and my injury. I am looking forward to the year."
HONG KONG – Defending Australian Open champion Maria Sharapova has withdrawn from a Hong Kong exhibition tournament because she is still recovering from a shoulder injury just weeks ahead of the first Grand Slam of the year.
The three-time Grand Slam winner started playing tennis again just over two weeks ago and isn't in proper condition, organizers of the Jan. 7-10 Hong Kong event said in a statement on their Web site Wednesday.
"I'm just not ready to play against the top-class competition in Hong Kong, although I remain hopeful for Australia where I'm the defending champion," Sharapova said in a statement.
The Australian Open is Jan. 19 to Feb. 1.
"Maria needs to get 'tennis fit' now and she's working hard," Sharapova's agent, Max Eisenbud, said.
Sharapova has not played competitively since pulling out of the Rogers Cup at Montreal in late July after beating Poland's Marta Domachowska in a nearly three-hour match in which she double-faulted 17 times.
The Russian was examined by a trainer midway through the three-set victory and withdrew from the event before her next match.
Medical tests later found a torn rotator cuff tendon in the 21-year-old's right shoulder.
Sharapova missed the rest of the just-concluded season, including the Beijing Olympics and the U.S. Open, ending her streak of 23 consecutive major tournaments.
She hadn't missed a major since her Grand Slam debut at the 2003 Australian Open. Sharapova also won the singles titles at Wimbledon in 2004 and the U.S. Open in 2006.
While she briefly held the No. 1 spot this year, her time off the court led her to slide down before ending the season at No. 9.
Sharapova went 32-4 with three titles in 2008, earning nearly $2 million in tour prize money.
Organizers in Hong Kong have replaced Sharapova with fellow Russian Anna Chakvetadze.
The field at the team-format event also includes top-ranked Jelena Jankovic of Serbia, American Venus Williams, Russia's Vera Zvonareva, Zheng Jie of China and India's Sania Mirza.