Serena Williams once again demonstrated that she is THE ONE, AND the number 1 in the world. Serena simply overpowered the No 3 seeded Russian Dinara Safina to win her fourth Australian Open tennis title and move to 10 career Grand Slams.  No. 2 seed Williams defeated Safina 6-0, 6- 3 in 59 minutes. She won her other Australian Open titles in 2003, 2005, 2007. Some commentators keep repeating how she is always victorious in odd years, but I have only one explanation for that phenomenon, it is called “coincidence.”

Why triple win? With her Australian Open title, Serena once again becomes the No 1 in the world, and (yes it gets even better for her), she collects $1.3 million US dollars to lift her career winnings to $23.4 million. Two days ago Serena Williams passed golfer Annika Sorenstam as the top prize money-earner in women’s sports history. YES, history! Wow… congratulations! Would she please stop whining about the money? [I had to say something nasty, no? After all I was rooting for Safina.]

[TIB: If you are fascinated by Serena and Venus Williams’ careers and personalities, you might consider buying their book Venus and Serena: Serving From The Hip: 10 Rules for Living, Loving and Winning.]

I have to say,  this statement made me smile and reminded me of Serena’s poetry writing skills.

From USA Today:

Off the court I have a new goal. I love writing, and for quite some time now I have wanted to write a screenplay. Before, I wanted to write a script for a movie, but now my goals have changed. I have decided I would love to write a “dramedy” — a mixture of a comedy and a drama. I think my goals changed because of my recent obsessions with Desperate Housewives, Sex and the City and Lipstick Jungle. I spend most of my spare time on my HP computer surfing the Internet. I figured I should trade in my remarkable ability to waste time into my ability to write. I have nothing to lose. Don’t laugh, because one day I will be at the Golden Globes accepting an award.

Serena’s interviews are almost as entertaining as her tennis performance. She doesn’t make any efforts to hide her mood, whether it is good, bad, feisty, PMSy or whatever. Here are some excerpts from her interview after she beat Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia 5-7, 7-5, 6-1. She next plays Elena Dementieva in the semifinals whom she lost at the past three encounters. Olympic silver medalist Dinara Safina and No. 7-seeded Vera Zvonareva meet in Thursday’s other semifinal.

Q. You spoiled the “all Russian” party.

SERENA WILLIAMS: You were expecting an all “Russian final” Who was expecting that?

Q. Elena said playing against you is a mental battle. Do you feel the same way?

SERENA WILLIAMS: You know, I don’t understand that statement.

Q. She said playing against you was a mental battle; that it wasn’t really about forehands or backhands. Do you feel like playing against you is a mental battle or something else?

Read more »

Serena Williams

Q. Did you hear about the dump-truck-pressing comment he [Andy Roddick] made?

SERENA WILLIAMS: Andy’s always exaggerating. I was so small for my age. He was small, too. But he just got jealous because my body was more fit and that my biceps are probably still bigger than his (laughter). Andy is incredibly jealous of me. You know, I just don’t know why. I can’t blame him really (smiling).

Q. His exact comment was that, at the time he had to run around in the shower to get wet while you were bench pressing dump trucks.

SERENA WILLIAMS: Again, I’ll have to talk to him, because he clearly didn’t have to run around. He wasn’t that thin. Andy’s a fit guy. Like I said, he was always trying to get muscles like mine, get more developed. I guess it still hasn’t happened yet (laughter)

——————–

Fernando Verdasco

Q. Can you explain why you are playing so well and why Ana Ivanovic seems to have so many problems?

FERNANDO VERDASCO: Good question. You know, I don’t know. I think you should ask Ana more than me about this.I don’t think that is my fault. This is what I think, you know. If you want to know something more, I think you should ask her, no? I don’t like to speak about other persons.

Wherever you are in the world, if you don’t have access to TV, or your provider does not carry  all the hot action from Melbourne courts,  this site provides live feeds from Australian Open. And it is FREE.

She is out of the Australian Open, but not out of the media spotlight. If you get CNN International, check out CNN Talk Asia’s segment featuring Jelena Jankovic. She sat with Talk Asia’s Anjali Rao in Hong Kong where she was playing an exhibition tournament. Jelena reveals her rise to the top of the game, her move to the U.S. at twelve and how she coped when war broke out in her native country Serbia. The show times are here.

Poor Jelena. It must be so frustrating. She definitely wants to prove the tennis world, that she is the true No. 1. Her vigorous off-season training hasn’t helped her much. Her serve still remains her Achilles’ heel. France’s Marion Bartoli has played agressively, so the scoreline somehow doesn’t surprise me–6-1, 6-4.This is the second time that Bartoli beats a No 1 player at a grand slam event. The first one was Justine Henin in the 2007 Wimbledon semifinals. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

More details here.

Q. Big night back home for Americans with the inauguration. Can I ask you what that means to you? Also, early hours of the morning tomorrow. Will you try and wake up and watch it?

SERENA WILLIAMS: This is an amazing moment for American history. Even yesterday, the United States being Martin Luther King’s birthday. To have his birthday and Obama’s presidency fall so close to each other. This morning I was watching on the TV before I went out to play. I looked at my arm, and I literally had chill bumps.

I’m a big fan of African American history, learning my roots so I can be a better person. You just look at all the things that we’ve come through. Now to have this opportunity in less than 24 hours is amazing.

I don’t know, I’ll probably record it. I need my rest for this tournament. But it’s definitely something that I probably will look at.

Q. Is it inspiring for you and your sister? Do you feel in some ways yourself and Venus have done in a sporting sense what Obama has done in a political sense?

SERENA WILLIAMS: I definitely think myself and Venus has opened up a lot of doors, being the first African Americans to do so much in tennis. But I never really look at that. I just look at trying to stay focused.

At the end of my career, I always thought I would go back and kind of dwell on that, because I don’t want to get complacent and be like, Oh, I did this, I did that. It can become easy to become complacent with nine Grand Slams and counting (laughter).

(TIB Note: By the way the Williams sisters reportedly haven’t voted at all, since they are Jehovah’s witnesses, and their religion prohibits voting) 

You have probably already seen Marat Safin sporting two black eyes during the Hopman Cup. According to Russian Vzglyad newspaper, Marat Safin got his injuries during a night club brawl in Moscow. As he was making his way to the dance floor, Safin accidentally bumped into 18-year-old Sergey Bondarchuk, the son of the famous Russian actor and producer Fyodor Bondarchuk.  They allegedly got involved in an argument which turned into a brawl which eventually was broken up by the night club security. The newspaper notes that Bondarchuk Jr. was there with  5-6 friends. Both sides have already reconciled, and Marat hasn’t filed a report with police. Here is what Marat said about the incident.