Queen Of Sports Celebrity

Davenport enters Aussie Open

2008-12-12T02:55:00.000-08:00

SYDNEY, Australia -- Three-time Grand Slam-winner Lindsay Davenport has signaled a return to the WTA Tour by entering the Australian Open.

Davenport, 32, who won the 2000 Australian Open, has not played a tournament since the U.S. Open in August, fueling speculation she was planning to retire.

"We are really excited that she has entered," tournament director Craig Tiley said Thursday. "She is a world-class player and a great ambassador for our sport."

As well as her Australian Open singles title, Davenport won Wimbledon in 1999 and the U.S. Open in 1998. She took part in this year's Australian Open, losing to eventual champion Maria Sharapova in the second round.

Davenport took a break from the WTA Tour for part of the 2006 and 2007 seasons before giving birth to a son, Jagger, in June 2007.

Entries for next year's Open have closed and the top 100 men and women are all on the list for the main draws.

Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press

Chinese take women's doubles gold

2008-12-09T09:04:00.000-08:00

Du Jing and Yu Yang - Photo

China's Du Jing and Yu Yang eased past South Korea's Lee Hyojung and Lee Kyungwon in the women's doubles to take the first badminton gold of the Games.
Du and Yu won 21-15 21-13 as the South Koreans failed to recover from an early injury to Lee Kyungwon.

The victory for China's second seeds reassured a roaring home crowd, who saw top seeds Yang Wei and Zhang Jiewen go out at the quarter-final stage.
Another Chinese pair, Zhang Yawen and Wei Yili, won the bronze play-off.

The competition's third seeds reached the podium with a 21-17 21-10 victory over Japanese pair Miyuki Maeda and Satoko Suetsuna.
China have now won gold in the women's doubles for the fourth straight Olympics, and the victory sets in motion the hosts' plan for a clean sweep of this year's badminton medals.ce

Source:news.bbc.co.uk

Agent: Sharapova will be ready for 2009 season

2008-12-05T09:30:00.000-08:00

Maria Sharapova expects to be back on the tennis tour at the start of 2009 and defend her Australian Open title after being sidelined since July with an injured right shoulder.
Sharapova’s agent, Max Eisenbud, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that she is “on track” to return to action at the Jan. 7-10 exhibition in Hong Kong that she usually enters.
The three-time Grand Slam title winner then plans to head to the Australian Open, which begins Jan. 19 in Melbourne.
“She’s doing good,” Eisenbud said in a telephone interview. “Everything’s on track.”
Sharapova has not played competitively since pulling out of a tournament in Montreal in late July after winning a nearly three-hour match in which she double-faulted 17 times. The right-hander was examined by a trainer midway through the three-set victory, and she withdrew from the event before her next match.
Medical tests later found a torn rotator cuff tendon in the 21-year-old Russian’s 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 won the singles championships at Wimbledon in 2004, the U.S. Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in 2008.

While she briefly held the No. 1 spot this year, the time away led her to slide in the rankings and she finished the season at No. 9.
Sharapova went 32-4 with three titles in 2008, earning nearly $2 million in tour prize money.

Nicol David looking for treble at Hong Kong Open

2008-12-02T11:42:00.000-08:00

Fresh from jetlag and sporting a new appearance, Nicol David, Malaysia's unstoppable world No 1, will attempt to win her third successive Hong Kong Open this week.
Amr Shabana, the men's top-ranked Egptian, will also begin his quest for a third-straight title in the $145,000 event, the third-richest purse on the PSA Tour.

Two former men’s champions are also in the men’s draw – France’s 2004 winner Thierry Lincou is seeded to reach the quarter-finals for the fifth time, and David Palmer, the fifth seed from Australia, is looking for his sixth successive semi-final berth since winning the trophy in 2001.

Lincou’s first round opponent is India’s Saurav Ghosal – one of three Asians to make it through today’s qualifying finals – while Palmer takes on England's Chris Ryder.

With 11 successive Tour titles under her belt since November 2007, David has notched up 48 matches without defeat – and will be looking to chalk up her half-century in the second round. The 25-year-old from Penang faces New Zealand’s Jaclyn Hawkes in the opening round.

But David will face stiff opposition from a number of quarters – led by the Australian-born sisters Rachael and Natalie Grinham, seeded two and three, respectively, and Natalie Grainger, the fourth seed from the USA.

Hong Kong celebrated two notable victories in the women’s qualifying finals when Joey Chan beat top qualifying seed Latasha Khan 11-6, 6-11, 11-5, 6-11, 11-3, and Elise Ng battled to a 56-minute 11-6, 11-8, 3-11, 6-11, 18-16 win over New Zealander Kylie Lindsay.

Chan and Ng join Annie Au, Christina Mak and 13th seed Rebecca Chiu to provide the biggest ever local main draw entry in the history of the women’s event.

With the Abu Dhabi Open postponed next month, the tournament has given the players extra incentive to perform on the world stage ahead of squash's richest event, the Saudi Open in mid-December.

Sania, Bhupathi, Bopanna come together for camp

2008-12-01T10:33:00.000-08:00

Indian tennis sensations Sania Mirza, Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna will come together for a camp at the Tennis Vill. This will be a three-week camp, which is held at Bhupathi's state-of-the-art facility in Bangalore.

The camp will include a high-intensity fitness programme with tennis. Shayamal Vallabhjee, a trainer from South Africa is hired to give tips on fitness front. However, American Scott Davidoff will be in charge of the tennis.

The fitness programme will include medium to high intensity aerobic work. Vallabhjee had earlier worked with the Indian cricket team. He explained, "We will start with medium to high intensity aerobic work to tax the cardiovascular and respiratory system. We'll have long training runs coupled with high intensity interval and shuttle runs. There will also be high intensity ladder drills."

"Our training will focus on functional strengthening, according to each individual's biomechanical strengths and weaknesses," added Vallabhjee.

CAROLINE WOZNIACKI

2008-12-01T07:23:00.000-08:00

Never a fan of the WTA age eligibility rules that limit the number of tournaments juniors can play, Caroline Wozniacki took advantage of being freed from those restrictions following her 18th birthday in July. Between mid-July and her last tournament of the season in October, she played 14 tournaments in 19 weeks .

In the process, the Dane won the first three WTA titles of her career (in Stockholm, New Haven, and Japan) and broke into the Top 15, ending the year at No. 12. But the relentless schedule also took its toll, as she finished the season with a laundry list of minor injuries.
Apart from learning to pace herself, the next step for Wozniacki is demonstrating that she can be a threat to the game’s top players. She has yet to pull off any significant upsets so far in her young career.

Tennis Photo Gallery

2008-12-01T06:33:00.000-08:00

Tennis Celebrity Photos Gallery

E.Dementieva

D.Safina

S.Williams

M.Sharapova

A.Radwanska

V.Williams	J.Jankovic	V.Zvonareva	A.Ivanovic	S.Kuznetsova

World Super Sports

2008-11-30T22:07:00.000-08:00

Photo Gallery

Golf

Tennis

Bowling

Squash

Babminton

Elena Dementieva Photos Gallery

2008-11-29T11:02:00.000-08:00

Michigan PGA Women's Open - Final Round

2008-11-29T10:13:00.000-08:00

2008 USBC Women's U.S. Open Final

2008-11-29T09:27:00.000-08:00

Carolyn Dorin-Ballard vs. Clara Guerrero

Squash

2008-11-29T09:09:00.000-08:00

Squash court
What is Squash
Squash is a popular racquet sport played all over the world. It is played on an indoor court surrounded by four walls. The front wall includes a tin at the bottom that acts like the net in tennis: hitting the ball into the tin ceases play for that rally.

Squash is usually played in a singles game (one player against another) or a doubles game (two against two). Each player is equipped with a racquet that is made up of loosely woven but tightened strings within a round or elongate frame. Squash racquets are of similar format but slightly different size/shape to tennis racquets.

An official squash ball is 4cm (approx. 1.5 inches) in diameter; the ball is made out of rubber and is 'squashy'. All balls must be hit against the front wall and play alternates between players until one cannot return a ball to the front wall (or the ball hits the tin).

There are various court dimensions for different circumstances (singles or doubles games), and in different regions of the world. The official court size for singles matches is 9.75m (32 feet) long, 6.4m (21 feet) wide and 4.57m (15 feet) tall at the front wall. The tin is located at the base of the front wall and reaches 48cm (19 inches) high.

Only the server can score points. If the server wins a rally, then a point is scored; a receiver who wins a rally, becomes the server. A squash match is composed of 3 to 5 sets and the winner of each set is the one who is the first to earn 9 points.

Tennis

2008-11-29T08:44:00.000-08:00

What is Tennis
Tennis is a sport played between two players (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a strung racquet to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt (most of the time Optic Yellow, but can be any color or even two-tone) over a net into the opponent's court.

The modern game of tennis originated in the United Kingdom in the late 19th century as "lawn tennis" and had heavy connections to the ancient game of real tennis. After its creation, tennis spread throughout the upper-class English-speaking population before spreading around the world. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all ages. The sport can be played by anyone who can hold a racket, including people in wheelchairs. In the United States, there is a collegiate circuit organized by the National Collegiate Athletics Association.

Except for the adoption of the tiebreaker in the 1970s, the rules of tennis have changed very little since the 1890s. A recent addition to professional tennis has been the adoption of "instant replay" technology coupled with a point challenge system, which allows a player to challenge the official call of a point.

Along with its millions of players, millions of people worldwide follow tennis as a spectator sport, especially the four Grand Slam tournaments .
Soure:wikipedia

Open Gaz De France

2008-11-28T10:22:00.000-08:00

Paris Final 2007 - Nadia Petrova vs Lucie Safarova

Macau Open 2008 Final

2008-11-28T09:48:00.000-08:00

Macau Open 2008 Final - Zhou Mi vs Julia Wong

Video

2008-11-28T09:40:00.000-08:00

Hong Kong Squash Open 2008 - Final

2008-11-28T09:18:00.000-08:00

Nicol David vs Rachel Grinham - 1st Game

Babminton

2008-11-28T08:12:00.000-08:00

What is Babminton?
Badminton is a racquet sport played by either two opposing players (singles) or two opposing pairs (doubles), who take positions on opposite halves of a rectangular court that is divided by a net. Players score points by striking a shuttlecock with their racquet so that it passes over the net and lands in their opponents' half of the court. A rally ends once the shuttlecock has struck the ground, and the shuttlecock may only be struck once by each side before it passes over the net.

The shuttlecock (or shuttle) is a feathered projectile whose unique aerodynamic properties cause it to fly differently from the balls used in most racquet sports; in particular, the feathers create much higher drag, causing the shuttlecock to decelerate more rapidly than a ball. Shuttlecocks have a much higher top speed, when compared to other racquet sports. Because shuttlecock flight is stubbornly affected by wind, competitive badminton is always played indoors. Badminton is also played outdoors as a casual recreational activity, often as a garden or beach game.

Since 1992, badminton has been an Olympic sport with five events: men's and women's singles, men's and women's doubles, and mixed doubles, in which each pair is a man and a woman. At high levels of play, the sport demands excellent fitness: players require aerobic stamina, agility, strength, speed, and precision. It is also a technical sport, requiring good motor coordination and the development of sophisticated racquet movements.

Headlines

2008-11-28T03:00:00.000-08:00

Sania ,Bhupathi ,Bopanna come together for camp

Caroline Wozniacki