Month of February , 2012

Andy Murray will not play in Great Britain's forthcoming Davis Cup tie against the Slovak Republic.

Captain Leon Smith announced his side for the Euro-Africa Zone Group I clash on Tuesday and Murray's name was not included.

A statement from the LTA said Murray had been advised not to play on "medical grounds" due to injuries picked up during his run to the Australian Open semi-finals.

Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic will not play for Serbia in the first round of this year's Davis Cup.

When Serbia announced their team ahead of Tuesday's deadline, the world number one, who also missed last year's first round, was not on their list.

The 2010 winners will instead by led against Sweden in Nis by world number nine Janko Tipsarevic. Viktor Troicki, Ilija Bozoljac and Nenad Zimonjic make up the side.

A lot can happen in two Grand Slam weeks, and who can remember it all? On the women’s side 127 players leave without a title, and who can remember them all. You remember some things and some people, of course, because of what happened or maybe your point of view. Here are some of my WTA takeaways.

We were right about Victoria Azarenka.

Before Petra Kvitova, there was Victoria Azarenka. Everyone said she’d win Grand Slam titles, rule atop the rankings and be the next big thing. Everyone knew it, or knew someone who did.

Serena Williams said her sister Venus has been training every day and will be ready for the Fed Cup matches against Belarus - her first competitive tennis since she pulled out of the US Open because of an autoimmune disease.

"She's coming along awesome. She's doing really well," said Serena Williams, who played her older sister in an exhibition in Colombia in November. "She's not wanting to take it too fast, come back too soon. But she's been training every day since before Colombia, so I know she's going to be ready."

Head of the Universe

Serena Williams says that the health of her sprained right ankle is progressing. Williams tore two ligaments in her ankle at the tournament in Brisbane during the first week of January. She will play Fed Cup for the United States this coming weekend against Belarus, which has new No. 1 Victoria Azarenka on its team. After she lost to Ekaterina Makarova at the Australian Open, Williams said that had it not been a Grand Slam, she would not have played. "The ankle is better," Serena said at a Fed Cup press conference on Tuesday in Worcester, Mass.

Former top-ranked Caroline Wozniacki has fired coach Ricardo Sanchez of Spain after just two months.

Wozniacki’s father Piotr told Wednesday’s edition of the Ekstra Bladet that his daughter didn’t get “new impulses” from working with Sanchez.

The Spaniard was hired in early December, only to see Wozniacki fall to defending champion Kim Clijsters in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and lose her No. 1 ranking. Wozniacki remains without a Grand Slam title and is now ranked fourth.

Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic said on Tuesday that his main focus this year would be on the Olympic Games and the French Open, a Grand Slam win that would see him hold all four major titles at once.

The French Open was the only Grand Slam that Djokovic failed to win last season as he went as far as the semifinals for the third time.

"The Grand Slam tournaments and the Olympic Games are my priority this year," Djokovic told the Politika daily in an interview published on Tuesday.

A giggling Maria Sharapova was coy Wednesday over her wedding to Slovenian basketball star Sasha Vujacic, saying "I won't answer, it's our business."

The pair got engaged in October 2010 in Los Angeles, where Vujacic was playing point guard for the Lakers, but have yet to publicly name the day for the nuptials, or announce a location.

Vujacic told RIA Novosti last week that he is "being a gentleman" and letting Sharapova spill the details about the big day, saying "I'll let her tell you that next week."

One of the ranking theories of superiority, especially in head-to-head results, generates from a fundamental disbelief that player A can and should regularly beat player B.

Then, when player B whups up on player A in what some—mostly rabid fans of, and apologists for, player A—insist is an extra-athletic or meta-strategic way, player B is said to "be in player A's head."

Recovery never comes fast enough for Venus Williams.

The latest has been especially slow for Williams, who plans to return this weekend in the Fed Cup matches against Belarus after a five-month layoff caused by Sjogren's Syndrome, an autoimmune disease that can cause fatigue and joint pain.

Williams practiced with the U.S. team Wednesday morning and said she's thrilled to be so close to competing again for the first time since the opening round of the U.S. Open.

When the year began common logic suggested Novak Djokovic would struggle to emulate his extraordinary 2011 but after retaining his Australian Open title in astonishing fashion on Sunday the question is can anyone stop him setting the bar even higher.

The Serbian world number one was the last man standing in Melbourne after two ferocious battles spanning more than 10 hours against Andy Murray in the semis and then Rafa Nadal in the final. He now towers like a chunk of granite at the top of the men's game.

Despite the strong Spanish lineup, Russia goes into the weekend's Fed Cup quarterfinal as clear favorite, a confident Maria Sharapova said Wednesday.

"The Spanish team is strong but we're the favorites for the match regardless," Sharapova said after practice on the hard courts of Moscow's Olympiisky Sports Complex, where the match will take place.

Andy Roddick remains on track to return at the SAP Open in San Jose, even though he says he hasn't hit a tennis ball since hurting his right hamstring in the second round of the Australian Open.

Roddick said on a conference call Thursday that an MRI exam showed a partial tear in the tendon and he has been busy with different types of treatment trying to heal up.

Rafa Nadal issued a statement on Thursday saying he had met all his fiscal obligations after a Spanish website published details about several companies linked to the world No 2 it said had been set up to drastically trim his tax bill.

The website Primeran (www.primeran.com) said the companies had been created with their domicile in the Basque region to take advantage of special tax rules designed to help local firms and had been used to radically cut the amount of tax paid on income from Nadal's image rights.

Maria Sharapova has held her first training session in Moscow ahead of Russia's Fed Cup quarter-final with Spain, which will get underway at the weekend.

The 24-year-old has only played in three Fed Cup matches in her career, but is looking forward to helping her team this time.

After a couple of injury-plagued years, the world number three reached the Australian Open final last week before losing in straight sets to Viktoria Azarenka.

And ahead of the Fed Cup quarter-finals, the Russian spoke exclusively to RT.

Recovery never comes fast enough for Venus Williams.

The latest has been especially slow for Williams, who plans to return this weekend in the Fed Cup matches against Belarus after a five-month layoff caused by Sjogren's Syndrome, an autoimmune disease that can cause fatigue and joint pain.

Williams practiced with the U.S. team Wednesday morning and said she's thrilled to be so close to competing again for the first time since the opening round of the U.S. Open.