HIT IN THE BALL?

An attempt to smuggle a drug-filled tennis ball into a south-east Queensland prison has been foiled.

Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence today told state parliament that the external fence alarm at Borallon Correctional Centre, west of Brisbane, was triggered about 6.45pm (AEST) on Sunday.

The intruder was not found but prison staff found a tennis ball wrapped in yellow electrical tape stuck in the fence, about two metres off the ground.

The ball was stuffed with ecstasy tablets and cannabis.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

T his exhibition match was a curiosity.

Spectacle and a little quality tennis.

The two met only once in an official pro match, like ships passing in the night, with Federer winning a five-setter at Wimbledon in 2001 that sent Sampras toward his 2002 retirement and Federer toward the top. But, as Federer steadily closed in on Sampras' major-title mark and Sampras began playing exhibitions last year, Federer proposed they cross swords in public.

A three-match tour of Asia late last year - Federer won the first two, Sampras the third - left Sampras asking that they meet in the United States and, in a chaotic 90 days, last night's match was cobbled together. Sampras said he was "shocked" to learn their show sold out in two weeks - top ticket $1,000, cheapest $50 - and sports agent Jerry Solomon said he had calls from the likes of Tiger Woods, Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch, Vogue editor Anna Wintour, jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, tenor Placido Domingo (and Solomon's wife, Nancy Kerrigan) for tickets.

WATCH PETE AND ROGER LIVE

The video will  be streamed live on USTA.com,  TVUNetworks.com and MSG.com at 8 pm tonight.

Following the live webcast, the full match will remain available on-demand on USTA.com for seven days. In addition, USTA.com will produce a highlights package to allow fans to view the key points of the match.

TSN SCHEDULE

SHOOT-OUT AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN

Sampras, the best of his generation, and Federer, the best of his, bring two eras of excellence together Monday night, when they play an exhibition match at a sold-out Madison Square Garden.

Pistol Pete  vs  The Artful Roger.

The past vs. the present: Sampras is 36; Federer is 26.

A total of 26 major singles championships, 14 for Sampras vs. 12 for Federer.

A total of 10 year-end No. 1 finishes in the rankings, a record six for Sampras vs. four for Federer.

Sampras’ serve-and-volley style, something rarely seen these days.

Federer’s all-court brilliance, conjuring up shots rarely if ever seen.

They only played each other once on tour, in the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2001, when Federer beat Sampras in five sets.

That came after Sampras had won the last of his seven titles at the All England Club, and before Federer began his current streak of five consecutive championships there.

They have started to get acquainted with each other’s personality and tennis, having played three exhibitions in Asia in November.

Federer won the first two, and Sampras won the third.

Now comes their first matchup in the United States, a best-of-three-sets encounter on an indoor hard court.

For Federer, Monday’s match might represent an exhibition with no trophy at stake and a guaranteed payday, but it also represents a chance to get in some work.

He’s coming off consecutive losses, in the Australian Open semifinals and the first round of an event in Dubai, so there hasn’t been much activity of late for a guy accustomed to playing all the way to the end of tournament after tournament.

It wasn’t until Friday that word emerged from his camp that Federer was diagnosed last month with mononucleosis, an energy-sapping infection caused by a virus.

“The good news really is to be certain of what has occurred,” Federer said. “The bad news is that I have quite some catching up to do in terms of fitness as I am not in the physical state that I would normally be in at this time of the year.”

RODDICK TAKES DUBAI

Sixth-seeded American Andy Roddick captured his 25th career ATP singles title and second trophy in three weeks with a 6-7(8), 6-4, 6-2 victory over unseeded Spaniard Feliciano Lopez in one hour and 55 minutes at the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships on Saturday. Roddick, who didn't lose his serve in five matches this week, hit 22 aces to extend his perfect record to 4-0 against Lopez.

FEDERER HAS MONO

Roger Federer's most intriguing season continues on Monday with a singles match in New York that won't count in the rankings but has still managed to sell out 19,000 seats in Madison Square Garden.

Federer's latest exhibition duel with the now-retired Pete Sampras is just that: an exhibition. But it comes at a particularly sensitive stage of Federer's brilliant career; one where he has looked surprisingly vulnerable to the slings, arrows and energy of the younger generation.

He has played just two tournaments in 2008 and lost twice to 20-year-olds, with Novak Djokovic manhandling him in straight sets in the semifinals of the Australian Open, and Andy Murray upsetting him in a tighter match this week in the first round in Dubai after Federer had taken a five-week break from competition.

In both defeats, Federer looked less fleet and fluid than usual and also less than convincing with his signature forehand.

Crisis? Beginning of the end of his long reign? Perhaps, but Federer, as it turns out, has not been practicing full disclosure until now.

At age 26, he has not only been struggling with young, gifted and hungry opposition, but also his health. Last month, after falling ill for the third time in six weeks, he underwent extensive tests in his native country of Switzerland and his part-time residence of Dubai. According to Federer, the conclusion was that he had contracted mononucleosis.

Federer already had been diagnosed with food poisoning prior to the Australian Open, which severely disrupted his preparation for that tournament, eventually won by Djokovic. But Federer, who complained of feeling sluggish during the Open, said it now appears that the mononucleosis was the more serious issue.

Mononucleosis is an infection caused by the Epstein-Barr virus. It can produce flu-like symptoms and extreme, lingering fatigue. Physicians often discourage those with mononucleosis from taking part in intense physical activity because of the risk of rupturing the spleen, which can become enlarged because of the infection.

He was well aware that mononucleosis forced Mario Ancic, a former top 10 player from Croatia, to miss six months of the 2007 season, including Wimbledon.

Federer said he was unable to practice for about 10 days in February and received medical clearance to begin training normally five days before the tournament in Dubai began on Monday.

"They weren't sure I was over it, but now I'm creating antibodies and this really shows you are over it," he said.

Even in perfect health, this season looked like the most challenging of Federer's career with the emergence of Djokovic and with an overstuffed calendar that includes the Olympic tournament in Beijing. He is still on a quest to win his first French Open, the only Grand Slam singles title he lacks, and also will be attempting to break his tie in the record books with Bjorn Borg by winning a sixth straight Wimbledon.

Now, 2008 looks even more challenging, and it should be fine theater to see how a champion accustomed to winning big titles without much adversity will react.

Until now, Federer has been largely spared any major health concerns and has played in 33 consecutive Grand Slam tournaments, winning 12 of them: two short of Sampras's all-time record. He won three of the four major titles in 2006 and did the same in 2007, but despite his stuttering start in 2008, he said it is too early to claim that his era of dominance is ending.

RODDICK TRUMPS JOKER

 

Andy Roddick, in his first tournament since splitting with Jimmy Connors as coach, reached Dubai Open final by beating Novak Djokovic.

The former world No1 denied that the separation from Connors had given him any extra motivation, though his form in winning 7-6, 6-3 against the Australian Open champion was even better than when beating Rafael Nadal the previous night.

"I don't know if this week is about Jimmy. I talked to him last night and he had a lot of things to say," said Roddick. "But for a long time it has been John [Roddick's brother], Doug [Spreen] and me on the road."

Roddick served superbly and played some clever rallies, but the match hinged on a forehand miss by Djokovic in the tie-break and one break of serve in the second set.

LOPEZ DOWNS DAVYDENKO

Feliciano Lopez earned a place in the final of the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships on Friday with a nail-biting defeat of fifth seeded Russian Nikolay Davydenko.

The unseeded Spaniard, who also reached the final in 2004 before losing to Roger Federer, took two hours 24-minutes to claim his 6-4 4-6 7-5 victory, recovering from 5-2 down in the final set.

RODDICK - CONNORS PART WAYS

There's no denying the influence Jimmy Connors had on Andy Roddick was considerable and tangible.

Unfortunately for Roddick, the vociferous channeling of Jimbo's on-court spirit didn't have anything to do with winning multiple Grand Slam events.

Only this lasting memory:

Roddick, to chair umpire Emmanuel Joseph: "You're an idiot."

Roddick to the fans: "Stay in school kids, or you'll end up being an umpire."

That all happened at the Australian Open in January, which will go down as the last match of the Roddick-Connors partnership at a Grand Slam tournament. Inauspiciously, the third-round loss to Philipp Kohlschreiber was Roddick's earliest exit in Melbourne since he went out in the second round in 2002.

The official end came last week when Connors resigned as coach, and the public announcement was yesterday in Dubai after beating Rafael Nadal in straight sets.

Coincidence?

Connors was just a part-time coach.

Roddick's older brother, John, seemed to do more of the heavy lifting, handling the daily nuts and bolts, and Connors the broader strokes.

The once-shaky Roddick backhand did improve.

But a moderately improved backhand wasn't enough to compensate for a lack of a Plan B, or the disturbing tendency to keep drifting back behind the baseline, negating his power.

Roddick told reporters in Dubai, describing the split as "amicable."

As it often happens, the best results came after they first started working together when Roddick reached the U.S. Open final in 2006 a few weeks after connecting with Connors, losing to Roger Federer.

Rankings don't lie, though. Pre-Connors, Roddick was mentioned most often as one of the biggest threats to Federer's dominance. But Rafael Nadal made the first move to slide in, on deck, followed by Novak Djokovic (who beat Federer to win the Australian Open in January).

Connors' legacy: a slightly better backhand and an extremely offensive mouth.

The stamp of Connors.

DUBAI - RODDICK BEATS RAFA

6] A Roddick (USA) d [2] R Nadal (ESP) 76(5) 62

F Lopez (ESP) d [4] D Ferrer (ESP) 64 63

[5] N Davydenko (RUS) d A Murray (GBR) 75 64

THE IDES OF MARCH??

In tennis, confidence comes and goes quickly. Remember how things looked in November? Federer dominated his last three matches at the Masters Cup and Djokovic ended the year with five consecutive losses and seemed destined for a slump in 2008. A little more than three months later, Djokovic is the Australian Open champion.

Last year, began with TGF [THE GREAT FEDERER] being beaten twice by Canas.

TGF lost his first match at Indian Wells, in the second round, after winning it the previous three seasons. He stands to gain a lot of ranking points if he does well this year.

TGF could gain a few more in Miami, where he lost in the fourth round. If he wins both tournaments and performs well at Estoril, Portugal, where he didn’t play last year, he’ll have a cushion over Nadal in the rankings that the Spaniard won’t be able to top without a TGF flop at Roland Garros or Wimbledon, or a sensational hard court season from Nadal (which has yet to happen). Djokovic has a lot of points to defend in coming weeks, too, and he’s still 1,300 points behind TGF.

Remember - -  it’s only March.

FLY IN LESSONS

911 callers reported a plane in trouble.

Pilot Bob Kadera was about to land on a golf course at the Marriott Lincolnshire.

His 14-year-old son Isaac in the passenger seat.

When asked if he thought it was a good idea at the time, Isaac said "not entirely."

But his dad put it down perfectly on the 7th fairway.

Pilot Bob Kadera said he wasn't running out of gas and he wasn't experiencing engine trouble.

In fact this was not an emergency. So why does a pilot land on a golf course? Because his son was running late for his tennis lesson at this club across the street.

"No, it's another means of transportation," said Bob. "You know cars, boats, planes, trains. Another means of transportation, way to get around. You know traffic is really terrible."

Kadera says he didn't think anyone would notice, but police were waiting.

Randy Melvin, Lincolnshire Police Chief, says "he had never contacted the Marriott Resort. He had no permission to land the plane. We are in the flight path for the Chicago Executive Airport, which is a private airport down in Wheeling."

By the way, police did not let Isaac make his tennis lesson but he did land a spot on his school's tennis team. And the youngest of 10 children seems to appreciate the dedication of his 65-year-old dad.

Isaac says "he's a good dad. He'll do whatever it takes."

Still Isaac says next time, they'll take the minivan.

STAN SMITH??? I KNOW THE SHOE

Stan Smith can be found - wearing shoes with his name on them - on Hilton Head Island, S.C., where he has lived for 37 years. Since 1971, he has had an endorsement contract with Adidas, and the shoes are consistently among the most popular in tennis circles worldwide, perhaps the biggest seller ever. He never thought it would last this long.

"No way," Smith said. "It was a lucky sort of thing. Most of the people who see the shoe don't know who I am. It's been a nice run."

The shoe in recent years has come in different colors, but the "Adidas Originals" line carries the classic white with a little green or blue trim.

"That's the reason it has lasted so long," Smith said. "You can wear it with anything. I like the basic look."

Smith, 61, basically looks a lot like the rangy 6-foot-4 Californian who was one of the dominant players in men's pro tennis from the late 1960s through the 1970s. Inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987, Smith was the world's No. 1 in 1971 and 1972, and has singles wins at the U.S. Open (1971) and Wimbledon (1972) to his credit.

He was even more of a juggernaut when paired with Bob Lutz, a former teammate at the University of Southern California, where they won two NCAA doubles titles and Smith captured the 1968 singles crown. The duo won the U.S. Open four times and the Australian men's doubles once.

Smith earned 39 singles and 61 doubles pro titles, and $1,774,811 in prize money - or a bit more than the $1.4 million winner's purse in 2007 at the U.S. Open and Wimbledon tournaments. He has played those venues for 40 years, including the senior division.

His first-place prize money at Wimbledon, he recalled, was $14,000 in American dollars, and was $20,000 at the U.S. Open. That's about what winning a first-round match is worth now.

"It was one of the bigger purses," said Smith, acknowledging that time and prize money moves on, and some aspects of the sport have changed.

"It's definitely more of a business now. It's more of an international business," Smith said.

"When I was playing, there were mainly Australians and Americans, and a few Europeans. Now players are from all over Europe, eastern and western. Africa and Asia now have good some players, and we still have Americans and Australians. It's the second-most international sport in the world after soccer."

Tennis also ranks in the top five in terms of popularity in many countries, Smith said, but by his count is only 10th or 11th in the United States.

While the sport will not supplant football, baseball and basketball, it could do more things like the development of Tennis Channel. He pointed to the spectacle of the U.S. Open, and the March 10 exhibition match between No. 1 Roger Federer and retired legend Pete Sampras.

Smith said the top three players, Federer, Spain's Rafael Nadal and Serbia's Novak Djokovic, are personable. They have separated themselves, as of now, from the pack, which is not that much different from other eras, he said.

WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN?

 

"I think Safin could be a real contender again because I like the way he plays, but he's crazy. He's crazier than I am I think. That's part of the reason why he is so good because he plays so crazy." - Nastase.

Don't flatter him, Ilie.

He's not as crazy as you.

MURRY TAKES OUT ROGER

World number one Roger Federer suffered his first opening-round defeat since 2004 when he lost 6-7 6-3 6-4 to unseeded Briton Andy Murray in the Dubai Championships on Monday.

The 12-times grand slam champion was last beaten in the first round of a tournament at the Cincinnati Masters in August 2004.

“Any time you get to play against someone like that it’s just an honor to be on the same court,” Murray said courtside after recording his second career victory over holder Federer.

“But each time I’ve played him I’ve stepped up my game. I’d been serving well and I don’t think he had a break point the whole match. I’m not sure how often that has happened to him.”

The result condemned Federer to back-to-back defeats, after he was also beaten by Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open semi-finals in January.

Murray, who has won two tournaments this year, squandered a set point in the opening set but that did not seem to faze him.

He produced a series of blistering groundstrokes to break Federer in the sixth game of the second and the top seed struggled to recover.

In the third set Federer failed to halt Murray’s charge and dropped his serve again in the fifth game.

Sensing victory, the Scot unleashed a series of ferocious serves to wrap up victory in one hour 54 minutes.

Monday’s win extended Murray’s head-to-head record against Federer to 2-1.

DUBAI STARTS MONDAY

Defending champion Roger Federer will play 12th-ranked Andy Murray in the opening round of the Dubai Championships.

The draw on Saturday also featured Rafael Nadal against Phillipp Kohlschreiber [who beat Roddick in the Oz Open]. Andy Roddick will make his Dubai debut against Juan Carlos Ferrero.

The tournament, which includes the top six players in the field of 32, starts Monday at the Aviation Club.

Federer, a four-time champion, has lost only two matches in Dubai -- to Rainer Schuettler of Germany in 2002 and Rafael Nadal in the 2006 final.

Federer and Murray are 1-1. The Briton won their last match, in the second round of the 2006 ATP Masters in Cincinnati.

Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic opens against Marin Cilic. The Serb could then play Mikhail Youzhny, who lost to Federer in the final last year.