
Thursday, December 18, 2008
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NEWS
Nadal and Jankovic named 2008 ITF World Champions

The ITF announced that Rafael Nadal (ESP) and Jelena Jankovic (SRB) are the 2008 ITF World Champions. This is the first time that either player has received this honor.
The 22-year-old Nadal crowned a dream year by securing the year-end No. 1 ranking following his fourth successive Roland Garros title and first triumph at Wimbledon.
Jankovic becomes Serbia’s first Singles World Champion after securing the year-end No. 1 ranking in a standout year. She reached her first major final at the US Open, and won more matches on the tour than any other player, capturing four titles in Rome, Beijing, Stuttgart and Moscow.
The ITF’s selection of its World Champions is based on an objective system that considers not only performances at the Grand Slams, Olympic Games and respective tours, but also gives weight to performances in the two ITF international team competitions, Davis Cup by BNP Paribas and Fed Cup by BNP Paribas, and the Olympic Games.
The ITF also announced that Daniel Nestor (CAN) and Nenad Zimonjic (SRB), and Cara Black (ZIM) and Liezel Huber (USA) are the 2008 ITF Doubles World Champions.
Tsung-Hua Yang (TPE) and Noppawan Lertcheewakarn (THA) are the 2008 ITF Junior World Champions. They become the first ever Asian players to receive this honor.
Yang clinched the year-end No. 1 ranking at last week’s Junior Orange Bowl, the final tournament of the season. The 17-year-old from Taipei captured his first major title at Roland Garros, and was also a finalist at the Australian Open and semifinalist at the US Open. He finished the season with a 20-7 record in singles and 25-6 in doubles.
Lertcheewakarn was the most consistent player on the girls’ circuit, capturing four singles and two doubles titles during the year. In doubles, Lertcheewakarn teamed up with Sweden’s Sandra Roma to win the Junior US Open, and was also champion at the pre-Wimbledon event at Roehampton. Her overall win-loss records for the year were 39-12 in singles and 31-11 in doubles.
The ITF Wheelchair World Champions are Shingo Kunieda (JPN) and Esther Vergeer (NED), with both players remaining unbeaten in singles all year.
The ITF World Champions will receive their awards at the annual ITF World Champions Dinner on Tuesday 2 June, in Paris, during Roland Garros.
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Jankovic Claims to be in Her Best Shape Ever

World number one Jelena Jankovic has laid down the foundation for her 2009 season with several weeks of fitness training alongside former Mexican marathon runner German Silva.
Following a holiday in Hawaii, the Serb divided her time between Mexico and her US training base in Florida. "I just came back from Mexico where I was in high altitude and the emphasis was on my fitness," Jankovic told her home Belgrade media. 'I was doing a lot of running and spent a lot of hours in the gym trying to improve my strength and speed overall."
One of the knocks on Jankovic last season was her fitness, with aches, pains, scars and sniffles all a part of her matches. She's hoping to lower the drama level by starting up extremely fit. "I'm trying to get very strong and for next year to minimize my injuries as much as I can control."
Jankovic ended on the top spot after four titles in 2008, but has yet to win her first major. But she took aim at her next target, the Australian Open. "I hope to be ready and in the best shape ever by the Australian Open because my goal is to win. I believe in myself and I believe my time will come," said the smiling 23-year-old.
Jankovic will charge into 2009 at the top Hong Kong exhibition, the World Team Challenge from January 7-10, also marking the return of Maria Sharapova, who has not played since Wimbledon with a shoulder problem.
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Federer Moves into Switzerland’s Wealthy Elite

Switzerland's 100-million-franc man Roger Federer has been noted as one of the 300 richest in his nation by business magazine Bilanz, with his net worth is estimated at between $100 and $160 million.
While he heads the all-time ATP prize money list on $43 million and rising, most of Federer's earnings occur off-court under the tutelage of IMG, which is said to have trebled his annual income to around $35 million.
The world No. 2 recently bolstered his bottom line in these troubled economic times, signing an eight-year contract with longtime clothing supplier Nike for a record $130 million.
While players complain about a long season, exhibition matches at $1 million a pop in the case of Federer can be quick little earners, according to the magazine, which total around six per year for the Swiss.
As a Swiss, Federer is ineligible for one of the lucrative tax deals offered to rich foreigners form sportsmen to entertainers to business men. But he did recently switch his fiscal canton to Wollerau south of Zurich, a lakeside locale favored by high earners.
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Murray Won’t Leave Britain to Save Money on Taxes

Andy Murray can't hide his love for the United States - especially after reaching his first major final this season at the US Open. But the Scot insists that he won't follow the tennis trend up relocating himself to a lower tax nation, preferring to stay in high-priced Britain.
Despite the lure of generous tax regimes for sportsmen in Switzerland and Monte Carlo - to name just two close to home - the 21-year-old says he's not for upping stakes. Murray has a flat in London, while his mother lives north in the family home at Dunblane, Scotland.
So far in his rocket-ride career, Murray has earned more than $5.5 million in prize money alone. Sponsorships are generally thought to treble or quadruple total prize money over the life of a successful career.
"I like to spend most of my time at home around friends and family," Murray says. "I spent December training in Miami and a few weeks there during the year but, apart from that, I don't see myself going anywhere."
If he does stick to the decision, Murray will be bucking the trend among his European rivals.
Almost every French competitor of note lives in Switzerland on a cantonal tax arrangement, with some - like Australian Open finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsong residing literally a few hundred metres from the French border in a Swiss village near Geneva airport.
There is an entire French tennis colony in Francophile Geneva, headed by wine-collecting Amelie Mauresmo.
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Henman to Play Exhibition Match at Wimbledon in May

Tim Henman is expected to play his first public tennis match in almost 18 months on Wimbledon's Centre Court next spring but the former British no.1 is not contemplating a return to the tour and is only playing as a favor to the All England Club.
The former world no.4 and four times Wimbledon semi-finalist is set to play in an experimental match next May to test the workings of the new retractable roof that will be used at the Championships for the first time the following month.
A dress rehearsal' is needed to test out the complex atmospherics and climactic conditions inside the largely rebuilt stadium and Sunday, May 17 is the date chosen. As a crowd of 15,000 is also required the All England Club realized a big name was necessary to lure the public.
Seven times champion Pete Sampras is believed to have been sounded out on his recent trip to London to play in the BlackRock Masters at the Royal Albert Hall but is believed to have declined. John McEnroe, Stefan Edberg and possibly Andre Agassi are other names on the All England Club wish list.
Current players are unlikely to be interested as all will be concentrating on their preparations for the French Open on clay which is a totally different surface.
The roof, which will close in 10 minutes, should be fully operational by February. Details concerning the program of events on May 17 as well as timings and ticket sales will be announced later.
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Philippoussis Moving Out of Tennis and Into Real Estate Investing

Mark Philippoussis appears to be channeling the energy he once devoted to his tennis into commercial house hunting in Melbourne as the two-time major finalist tries his hand at the property game.
With his days on court over in everything but name due to chronic knee injuries, the 32-year-old has returned to his childhood home to live for the first time in 15 years.
To make ends meet, the former millionaire playboy whose talent never truly hit its potential, is taking an interest in real estate. Where is he looking: "Anywhere where there's an opportunity really," he told local media. "I love homes and I love property, and am looking to get into property developing next year."
Philippoussis last played on the pro level just under two years ago, going down with another knee problem which required surgery at the Hopman Cup in Perth. He then re-injured his knee a year ago when he attempted to play for an Australian Open wild card.
While expecting to compete in a senior event last autumn, he withdrew from that also and pulled from a hybrid tennis battle of the generations to be held in Adelaide next month.
With time on his hands, the man they once called the Scud is game for anything. As proof, he even appeared well out of type on a tennis-inspired cooking product launch.
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Murray Loves Training in the US and Promises to do More
By Charles Bricker

Running five miles along one of Miami’s beaches, Andy Murray is just another anonymous South Florida fitness maven, and, with the pre-Christmas temperature plunging back home in Great Britain, could he be in a better place?
Murray drove up the Atlantic coast Saturday to play at Mardy Fish’s annual charity event in Vero Beach looking happy, refreshed and well into his off-season plan to make himself into a greater physical presence in 2009.
"I’ve already put on three or four kilos (about nine pounds), but I started from a pretty poor base of fitness in the last year," Murray said. "I hadn’t done a whole lot of fitness work. I feel much better this year."
He’s doing daily 400-meter sprints as part of the whole weight training, stretching and running regimen, and there is the one long run on the sand on the weekend.
Improved endurance is the last piece of the puzzle that could take Murray from his current No. 4 to at or near the very top of men’s tennis.
He’s had two difficult problems with stamina this year, both times losing on the second day of back-to-back matches.
At the U.S. Open, the semifinal between Murray and Rafael Nadal was suspended in the third set by bad weather on Saturday, forcing Murray to come back Sunday and spend more physical energy and emotion to wrap up the win in four sets. Meanwhile, Roger Federer finished Saturday and had Sunday off, then won in straight sets against his Scottish opponent in Monday’s final.
Then, at the Masters Cup in November, Murray defeated Federer in an arduous round-robin match -- and one he didn’t need to win to advance to the semis -- but lost the next day to Nikolay Davydenko.
"I won’t know till tomorrow how much it took out of me," said Murray after he whipped Federer. He found out, and determined that he was going to raise his fitness in 2009 to give himself a stronger chance at winning back-to-back matches late in tournaments.
Running in Miami, no one is stopping him for autographs. No one is asking him to pose for photographs and that highly-valued privacy, combined with Florida’s great weather, has made Murray very comfortable in the United States.
"I’ve loved America since I was young," said Murray. "Since coming to the Orange Bowl (junior tournament in Miami) when I was 11 or 12. I’m going to train in Florida pretty much every December, and after Wimbledon, before the start of the U.S. hardcourt season.
"Pretty much every American I meet has a great-grandfather or parents or something that came from Scotland. Seems like Americans have a lot of ancestors there," Murray said, explaining the easy bond between Scots and Yanks. Could he ever see himself permanently establishing a training base in the U.S.?
Fish was sitting next to Murray during a brief Q & A session before they went on court for the charity singles exhibition. "Yes!" said Fish, trying to coax him up to Saddlebrook, where Fish trains with James Blake and the Bryan brothers. But Murray’s answer was no. "I’ve got my family back home," he said. But he’s still going to spend significant time in the U.S. training.
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The Creative Bryan Brothers Solve Bob’s Shoulder Problems at Exhibitions
By Charles Bricker

Last year, after winning the Davis Cup in early December, the Bryan twins had eight exhibitions and this year they are only doing four. They didn’t want to cancel all their off-season charity appearances because of Bob’s lingering shoulder injury, but they've found an innovative solution.
"Truth be told, just to be safe, Mike is serving for Bob when they can get away with it and no one notices," said their father, Wayne Bryan.
That can’t have been easy, since Bob is left handed and Mike right handed.
Bob has been working hard in the gym. Mike, too. But Bob is especially taking care to lift small weights to strengthen around his left shoulder," said Wayne Bryan.
"The pain is down from a 10 to about a two. We hope to get it to zero.
"It’s not a serious injury to the shoulder. It is just tendonitis. But you have to work on it each day and manage the pain, or it could become more serious.
"He is playing as little as possible in early December and they will gradually pick it up after Christmas and go full bore in early January, getting ready for Sydney and the Australian Open.
"They will not play Chennai (pre-Aussie Open) to get more rest time and Bob may or may not play the mixed at Australian."
The mixed is important to Bob, who has four mixed doubles titles -- at the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. He needs only Australia to hit for the cycle, same as they’ve done in men’s doubles.
"The other adjustment Bob has made is to not take so many serves in practice. He’ll cut down a bit and try to take a little more time off each week, and practice a little less.
Now 30 years old, has one twin or the other ever thought of just retiring if the other could not continue playing because of injury? Have they become so accustomed to each other they wouldn’t feel comfortable with another full-time partner?
"Oh, they’ve joked about it a few times," said their father. "But never seriously considered it. I suspect if one was unable to play, the other would get another partner and go on. The injury twin would probably then become the coach."
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Graf Sued by Former Agent

The former charmed life of Andre Agassi may seem to be crumbling, with his wife Steffi Graf now being sued by his own former manager and ex-best friend over a business deal gone wrong, likely due to the financial crisis hitting especially hard in the US.
Las Vegas media report that only a few months after Agassi and childhood friend Perry Rogers ended their business relationship - in the wake of Agassi's longtime money man being booted from the ATP board for being too sympathetic to outgoing boss Etienne de Villiers - Graf is now being sued by Rogers.
The conflict appears to be breach of contract, according to a lawsuit seeking $50,000 plus interest and legal fees for Rogers after acting as former great Graf's manager and agent for the past six years.
"I am both saddened and disappointed to learn that Perry has filed a lawsuit, and sadder still that he has sued my wife, Stefanie," Agassi said in a statement. "I remain hopeful that we will be able to resolve our business issues with minimal damage to our families and mutual friends."
Legal papers show that Graf had granted Rogers a 15 percent partnership interest in all of her business ventures, dependant on a certain investment account attaining a value of $20 million. That happened in January, 2007, which caused Graf to start the specified payments. But they were stopped ten months later, the papers allege.
The legal morass comes after a VIP resort real estate investment made in Idaho by Agassi and Graf also went under due to the credit crunch.
Agassi's latest project is trying to help in obtaining the Davis Cup tie between the US and Switzerland for his hometown.
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TENNIS SHORTS
Murray Denies He is Leaving Fred Perry for K-Swiss

Andy Murray has hit back at reports that he was ditching his clothing deal with Fred Perry sportswear in the year Britain's greatest ever champion would have been 100 years old, to instead be lucratively clad in K-Swiss attire.
Many have speculated on the future of Murray's four year deal with Fred Perry – particularly as the company does not manufacture shoes. Earlier this year the world no.4, who has always worn adidas footwear, switched temporarily to Nike at Wimbledon. A projected $3 million deal with K-Swiss would have been very enticing.
K-Swiss of course manufacture both clothes and shoes and currently boast Mardy Fish, Tommy Haas and Anna Kournikova as their most visible clothes horses. A top five player sufficiently gifted to contest the sport's major prizes next year would have fit very much into the company's business plan but Murray insisted: "I will be wearing Fred Perry clothing next year. 2009 would have been Fred Perry's 100th birthday, and the company has a great range of clothes lined up for me."
Murray appeared at Mardy Fish’s fundraiser this weekend wearing Fred Perry and adidas.
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HBO to Project the Game Way Beyond Madison Square Garden
By Liza Horan

In a significant move to expose millions of Americans to pro tennis and encourage thousands of youngsters to play the game, HBO signed on to broadcast the BNP Paribas Showdown for the Billie Jean King Cup [TennisNight.com] on March 2 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The invitational exhibition features Serena and Venus Williams, Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic vying for $1.2 million in prize money and the inaugural Cup.
The event will be telecast live on HBO, which counts 40 million subscribers in total with sister network Cinemax, and via HBO on satellite provider DIRECTV, which reaches 17.3 million customers. In addition to viewing the event at home, the broadcast will be made available free to tennis clubs and facilities to tie into the USTA's "Tennis Night in America," which will promote youth sign-ups for recreational tennis programs in the spring and summer.
HBO was the TV "home" of Wimbledon for 25 years beginning in 1975, as well as the producer of documentaries on King and Arthur Ashe, among others, yet the BNP Paribas Showdown will be the first live pro tennis broadcast in years. It also ties HBO to grassroots efforts to promote tennis participation. In addition to driving program registrations, the USTA will commence the search for "America's Best Tennis Town" during the event. The winner of the contest to find "the most passionate tennis town" will be announced at the U.S. Open.
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WTA SCHEDULED TO PLAY
Upcoming schedules as of December 15, 2008
1. Jelena Jankovic - Australian Open
2. Serena Williams - Sydney, Australian Open
3. Dinara Safina - Hopman Cup, Sydney, Australian Open
4. Elena Dementieva - Auckland, Sydney, Australian Open
5. Ana Ivanovic - Brisbane, Australian Open
6. Venus Williams - Australian Open
7. Vera Zvonareva - Sydney, Australian Open
8. Svetlana Kuznetsova - Sydney, Australian Open
9. Maria Sharapova - Australian Open
10. Agnieszka Radwanska - Sydney, Australian Open
11. Nadia Petrova - Sydney, Australian Open
12. Caroline Wozniacki - Auckland, Sydney, Australian Open
13. Flavia Pennetta - Hopman Cup, Hobart, Australian Open
14. Patty Schnyder - Hobart, Australian Open
15. Victoria Azarenka - Brisbane, Sydney, Australian Open
16. Alize Cornet - Hopman Cup, Sydney, Australian Open
17. Marion Bartoli - Brisbane, Sydney, Australian Open
18. Anna Chakvetadze - Hobart, Australian Open
19. Dominika Cibulkova - Hopman Cup, Sydney, Australian Open
20. Katarina Srebotnik - Auckland, Sydney, Australian Open
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COVERS

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SIGHTINGS
Rafael Nadal playing soccer in the 'Iker Vs Rafa' charity game at the Palacio de Deportes de la Comunidad de Madrid on December 16, 2008 in Madrid, Spain.
Novak Djokovic, David Ferrer, Carlos Moya attend the 'Iker Vs Rafa' charity game to help against Malaria photocall at the Palacio de Deportes de la Comunidad de Madrid on December 16, 2008 in Madrid, Spain.
Sania Mirza attending a ceremony during which she was awarded an honorary doctorate in Chennai on December 11, 2008. During the special convocation at the Dr. MGR University in Chennai, Mirza was awarded with an honorary doctorate.
Send your player sightings to: cort@tennisnews.com
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MONEY MOUNTAIN
2008 Prize Money Earnings
MEN (November 17)
1 Nadal