The Spanish legend tennis player Bjorn Borg has tipped fellow Spaniard Rafael Nadal to replace Roger Federer as the world’s number one men’s tennis player in the near future. According to Borg, Nadal is putting maximum effort to develop his game and will soon become a complete player. Borg said that Nadal has no problems with his physical aspect of the game and has also received good reviews from various quarters on how he maintains his physical strength.

Borg said that even though he is physically strong Nadal should not overload his body by playing too much and will need to take care of his body in order to climb to the top of the rankings. Borg is of the opinion that if Federer concentrates on his tennis and does not suffer injuries then he could be one of the greatest tennis players of all times. Federer will have to have the hunger power in him to break more and more records and win many tournaments, which is not an easy job.

Serena Williams, a top American tennis player, said that she is excited to come to Key Biscayne to play in the Sony Ericsson Open that has started last Wednesday with matches involving unseeded players. Serena Williams who is a busy personality sometimes shows keener interest in acting and fashion than to tennis, but she says that she loves playing at Key Biscayne and holds a record of 23-1 since debuting here in 2002.

Serena, who has received rare reviews from players of the golden era, always has a lot of friends and family members in the court watching her play as she loves having a lot of people around her as it builds up pressure on her to keep on winning. She said that tennis is the most important thing in her life and she loves walking on the court every time. This is the third tournament that Serena is playing in the 2008 season and has so far been a quarter finalist in Australian Open and won the Bangalore Open.

Roger Federer, the world number one men’s tennis player, has been shown the exit door from the Pacific Life Open in Indiana Wells by a lesser ranked player named Mardy Fish. Federer succumbed very meekly to a 6-3, 6-2 defeat in the semi finals of the first ATP Master Series tournament of the season. Federer is yet to win a championship in the year 2008.

Fish opened the semi finals in an unbelievable fashion breaking Federer’s first service game and quickly went on to gain a 3-0 lead. Fish said that it wasn’t Federer’s day and felt that the way he approached the game might have also been the reason for Federer’s debacle. He said that he planned to put extreme pressure on Federer right from the word go and was successful in his plans and was very much pleased with the end result. Federer admitted that he could not find an answer to Fish’s game plan. Fish will now face Australian Open Champion Djokovic in the finals.

The Australian tennis sensation and number one player Lleyton Hewitt has consented to lead the team for their tie against Thailand in Townsville, a north Queensland city, in the month of April. Lleyton Hewitt will be playing his 26th Davis Cup match for Australia in April and this is the Australian team’s second round group one qualifying match in the Asia/Oceanic Zone. It was revealed by tennis Australia that Hewitt, Peter Luczak, Paul Hanley and Chris Guccione will represent Australia for the tie against Thailand. The first Davis Cup match that Hewitt played for Australia was way back in 1999 in Boston, U.S.A, where he defeated Todd Martin in four sets.

Australia is the strong favorite to win this second round group tie and had defeated Taiwan 4-1 in their first Asia /Oceanic qualifying tie. If Australia comes out as winners in this tie that is to be held on April 11-13, then they will step into the World group’s playoff stage to be held in September. Australian captain John Fitzgerald said that the team for the tie against Thailand was picked by keeping the court conditions in mind. The tie against Thailand is to be played indoors and the court will be having high bounce, but will be slightly on the slower side.

The Indian number one tennis player and the current number one Asian tennis player, Sania Mirza, has entered the fourth round of the Tier I Pacific Life Open tennis tournament played at Indiana Wells. Sania said that she was happy that she was able to remain focused and play the game at the top level after all the controversies that have happened recently off the court. Sania said that she was happy to have played a tough match against Shahar Peer in the third round, whom she has beaten three times out of their last four meetings and felt that she is getting better and better with every game.

Sania said that she was pleased with the results that she is achieving against top players despite the personal controversies that she has to face off the court. Sania involved in one controversy or the other decided earlier this month that she will not take part in any tennis event in India for this year and also had to face a law suit filed against her for showing disrespect to the national flag during her stint at the Hopman Cup in Perth. The law suit was finally dropped and Sania says that she is not able to play with a steady and stable mind. She will now face a much tougher opponent, in fifth seed Daniela Hantuchova in the fourth round of the tournament.

Rafael Nadal, the current number two player in the world, has admitted that toppling the Swiss sensation and the current world number one, Roger Federer, is a daunting task even though he is just 350 points away from Federer. Both the players are currently playing at the first ATP Masters Series tournament of this season at the Indiana Wells where Rafael Nadal is the defending champion. Nadal says that he is closer in the ranking, but said that it is not as close as it seems, as it is the points system that decides the rankings. Nadal says that there are a lot of speculations among people that he is closing in on Federer, but the fact is that it is not as easy as everyone is thinking.

Federer has been perched on top of the ATP rankings for a record 215 consecutive weeks and Nadal has been lingering at the No. 2 spot for the past 138 straight weeks. Federer is the top seed at the Indiana Wells tournament for the past five years and has won the title consecutively in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Nadal needs to play out of his skin in this tournament as well as the next one in Miami in order to put some pressure on the No. 1 ranking of Federer.

Marina Navratilova, the nine-time champion of Wimbledon, regained her Czech citizenship. Navratilova said she was “ashamed” of the US under George Bush. She regained her citizenship after 33 years. She fled from the Communist Czechoslovakia 33 years ago to live in U.S. Although she got back her Czech nationality, she will retain her U.S nationality also. She is ashamed that people including herself selected Bush. Navratilova was only 18 when she left Czechoslovakia. The Communist regime in Czech stripped off her nationality without much delay. Navratilova was given American nationality in the year 1981.

She later revealed that, she was forced to leave her birthplace because the Czech authorities wanted to stop her from playing in U.S. At that time, most of the major Tennis tournaments were held in U.S. So, Navratilova could not agree with the demands of the Czech authorities. In America, she became one of the most successful tennis players. She won 18 grand slam single titles and 31 doubles titles. Though she retired in 1994, she came back to win several doubles titles after 6 years. Her 354th tournament was at the U.S Open in 2006, that was her final competition and she came out as a winner in the mixed doubles.

Roger Federer, the Swiss tennis sensation and the world number one player, who has been in the news recently with many journalists targeting him for his two consecutive losses, has silenced his critics with a three set victory over tennis legend and former world number one Pete Sampras in an exhibition match played at the Madison Square garden at new York last Monday. Federer said that he was motivated to practice more and was determined to establish his place at the top of the game after his twin consecutive looses this season. He says that he loves to be fighting with opponents on center courts around the world and enjoys the pressures, fans and center courts matches the most.

Federer, who has played the fourth exhibition match with Pete Sampras in the last 5 months, beat the former world number one player in three grueling sets 6-3, 6-7, 7-6 that took 2 hours and 14 minutes. Federer felt great to have played against Pete at the Madison Square garden and says that it is always a privilege to play against his idol and a great player. He was pushed to the brink in this exhibition match, but came up trumps when it mattered and even Sampras acknowledges that Federer is still the man to beat. Sampras says that there will be more tournaments to come in which one will see Federer holding the winning trophy.

The fans at the Bangalore Open were witness to a gruesome battle between the William sisters for a place in the final of the Tier II event staged in India. The younger sister and third seed of the tournament, Serena Williams, came through unscratched beating her sister Venus in a thrilling three setter match that finished with a score line 6-3, 3-6, 7-6. The match lived up to its hype and expectations as the Williams sisters thrilled the audience with their powerful forehands and serves. After the match was evenly poised at one set a piece, Serena had the upper hand serving for the match at 5-4, but she faltered at the crucial points to hand the game to Venus Williams.

The third set went on to a tie breaker which Serena won easily 7 – 4 and has proved that she is fit to rally with the top women tennis payers after her long recuperating lay off from the gum surgery she underwent after her Australian Open appearance. She said that it was a tough battle on court with her sister and said that she had to bring her focus back in order to gain upper hand over her finalist opponent, Patty Schnyder who came up trumps in the second semi final against unseeded Chinese player Zi Yan.

Serena Williams was never close to her best in the second round match of the II tier Bangalore Open against Italian Tzipora Obziler but came up with a 7-5, 6-0 win over the Italian player. The 11th ranked player in the world got entry into the first round virtue of a first round bye and has now advanced into the quarterfinals of the tournament. Williams is playing for the first time since her gum surgery and showed her rustiness and lack of match practice in the first set of the match. She had to fight hard against the 117th ranked Italian to win the first set of the match 7-5.

Serena Williams was playing her first tournament since her quarterfinal defeat at the Australian Open in January 2008. Williams said that she did not feel 100% on the court and had made many errors during the game. Serena Williams, who is playing for the first time in India, felt that her opponent did not give any pace for her to hit the ball and played a lot of soft balls at her. Serena Williams will be playing against Russian Anastasia Rodionova to book a place in the semi-finals of the Bangalore Open.