McEwen takes TDU lead as Swift claims stage

The longest stage of the Tour Down Under has seen victory to Sky rider Ben Swift, ahead of Australians Robbie McEwen and Graeme Brown.

But McEwen's third placing in stage one means he is now in the Ochre jersey as overall race leader.

Swift said after the race he was not meant to be sprinting until 500 metres to go but when main team rider Greg Henderson was not there for the lead-out, he got the order to go.

The day's first sprint stage went to David Tanner, ahead of Yuriy Krivstov and Mitchell Docker.

Docker, Krivstov and Tanner went over first for the King of the Mountain (KOM) climb, and Luke Roberts picked up valuable points for fourth to lead the KOM standings overall.

The second sprint was taken out by Simon Zahner, ahead of Docker and Tanner.

A five-rider breakaway group had a small lead with about 50 kilometres to go, but four fell back into the peloton to leave Tim Roe alone at the front.

He was hauled in just a few kilometres from the end of the 146km stage from Tailem Bend to Mannum.

Sprint star Mark Cavendish, Australian Matthew Goss and several other cyclists were involved in crashes in the final minutes of the stage.

So was defending champion Andre Greipel but he got back on his bike.

Uni SA rider Bernard Sulzberger suffered a broken collarbone.

Thursday's stage three covers 129 kilometres from the Adelaide suburb of Unley to Stirling in the Adelaide Hills.

Source http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/01/19/3116681.htm

Federer can win 20 majors, says coach

Roger Federer's coach sees no reason why the Swiss maestro won't wind up with 20 grand slam titles before he calls it quits.

Acclaimed mentor Paul Annacone, who coached Pete Sampras to half of his 14 career majors, linked up with Federer last August and says the 16-times grand slam champion is showing no signs of slowing down.

"I don't see an end in sight," Annacone said on Wednesday.
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"One of the most amazing things about Roger is he so loves it still. It's not a grind to go play small tournaments."

"If you look at other athletes, 29 years old - he's not ready for a walker yet.

"He's not in a place where his skills are deteriorating yet. That's not an issue."

Federer's sweet 16 is already the grand slam benchmark in tennis, but Annacone believes his charge could well surpass the magical number of 18 golf majors that Jack Nicklaus amassed.

"Is 20 a realistic number? Why not," he said.

"I haven't thought all that much about it and I don't think Roger spends a lot of his waking hours dwelling on it.

"I think when you're as gifted as an athlete as he is, you can play at such a high level without expending an incredible amount of energy.

"I mean, he works hard at it but if you watch him play matches, it's pretty amazing to watch how he glides through things.

"When you combine all those things, he can win a lot. It's hard for me to put a number on it.

"He can win every tournament he plays. He's probably not going to, but if you look at how good he is, he can win every time he plays.

"There's not a lot of guys you could say that about. So if he can stay healthy and happy and eager and continue on the process that he's on, I don't know what the end number would be.

"But is 20 realistic? Sure, why not."

While Annacone spent from 1995-2001 and part of 2002 coaching Sampras and has only been working with Federer for five months, the American can already see similarities between arguably the two greatest players of the open era.

He said the pair's ability to "deal with adversity in a pretty mild mannered, no big deal type of way" couldn't be coached in a player.

"Whether it's physical or mental, they'll drain the sensationalism out of situations and just execute what they're trying to play.

"They accept what they can accept and control what they can control and the things that they can't, they just keep on about their business and they just play.

"I think in today's athletic world you don't see a lot of people that do that very much.

"They tend to lose focus on what they're doing and can get caught up on things on the side.

"In particular, Pete and Roger are both very good at keeping things very simple and keeping it very clear in their own mind of what they need to do."

Not surprisingly, Annacone was reluctant to say who he thought was the superior player of the two living legends.

"The tennis game changed so much within the 24 months after Pete stopped - in terms of speed of the court, style of play, conditions of balls, racquets, equipment strings," he said.

"So in actuality for me, it's like comparing apples and oranges. It's a totally different game now, it's amazing.

"The sad part is, I would have loved to have seen these guys play each other in their prime for like five or six years in a row.

"Great players - and I just go back with Pete and Andre (Agassi), who I saw play each other so much and they pushed each other to such incredible heights - and I would love to have seen Roger and Pete do that with each other."

Source http://www.smh.com.au/sport/tennis/federer-can-win-20-majors-says-coach-20110112-19nu9.html

Dokic finds positives among the rubble

By her own admission, Jelena Dokic had nothing left to give. This was just in one match, a brutal hiding from rising German star Andrea Petkovic, but what about the rest of the summer?

At 26 and with all signs pointing to her best days being anchored in the past, Dokic is still trying to maintain the rage on a professional circuit she has graced on and off since she was just 16.

A decade later, she is desperately trying to fossick for positives ahead of next week’s tournament in Sydney but after being unceremoniously hammered by Petkovic, who celebrated her 6-0 6-1 blitzkrieg victory with a signature on-court shimmy, the shards look too plentiful to put back in place.

It took just 46 minutes for Dokic to depart in the second round of the Brisbane International. Petkovic fired all her guns and rather than return with some artillery of her own, a sluggish Dokic took cover until the barrage ceased.

There were mitigating circumstances, she said, citing a stomach illness that has slowed her for the past few days and sapped her of speed, stamina and power.

Even so, anyone expecting to see Dokic recreate her inspiring Australian Open quarter final run of 2009 over the coming weeks would have left disillusioned. Two years ago, she would have us believe there was something left in the tank. Today, it looked bone dry.

“I think it’s very simple. I was flat. I had nothing to give from the beginning. That’s basically it. I wasn’t in the match at all. I’ve been sick for a couple of days. It’s taken its toll,” Dokic said.

“I went to a doctor and he thinks it’s a stomach virus I’ve had for a few days. I already had it in the first match. I struggled but I don’t like to make excuses. But if you’re playing a top 30, top 35 player, you’ve got to have everything to give.

“I think it was obvious from the first point I couldn’t hit the ball so well or move well and my power was down.”
It’s difficult to find any trinket of optimism in the rubble of such a one-sided demolition. The first set took 18 minutes to complete, barely enough time for the fans to file in the doors.

As professional athletes are obliged to do, Dokic was frantically trying to convince herself there had been some good in her visit to Brisbane and more was to come in Sydney and Melbourne.

To do that, she had to banish all thoughts of Cyclone Petkovic and rewind to her first match, a straight sets win over qualifier Anastasia Pivovarova. The only other scrap of good news was that her wrist, injured in the opening round, held up, even if her form didn’t.

“It’s the beginning of the year. I got a lot of confidence from that first match. I’m really happy about that. But there is a lot of work to do,” Dokic said.

“It’s tough. I really wanted to play well here. The crowd is always behind us and a lot of people come out to watch. I’ve got to just forget about the tennis and try to take positives out of this week. I think there’s quite a few of them.

“It’s not a big deal. I’ve got to move on from this and take all the best things I did well this week, work on the things that are my weaknesses and try to have a good week next week.

“Even though the score was the way it was, on certain points I hung in there. I still got to see some things, what level I’m up against. I take a lot of positives from the first match.”

Dokic has already made impressive inroads in returning from the tennis badlands, which saw her ranking blow out past 600 at the end of 2006 through a combination of injury, poor form, personal turmoil and disinterest.

Citing new motivation and a body free from serious ailments, Dokic was hoping to gain some momentum in Brisbane and try and ambush some of the fancies at the year’s first Grand Slam.

With illness undercutting her preparations, that would now appear to be a bridge too far.

The 23-year-old Petkovic , who made the quarter finals of the US Open last year, will now play Australian Jarmila Groth in the quarter finals. Groth shocked top seed Sam Stosur on Tuesday night.

Source http://www.smh.com.au/sport/tennis/dokic-finds-positives-among-the-rubble-20110105-19fri.html