Federer-Baghdatis Oz Final Set; Serena Pulls From Tokyo

The test for Baghdatis is if he has anything left in the tank, mentally or physically, after three lengthy Top 10 wins over Andy Roddick, Ivan Ljubicic and David Nalbandian, though two days to recover should be plenty for the 20-year-old.

Federer holds a 3-0 career record over the Cypriot, winning their first encounter in four sets at the US Open, then a straight-set win at last year's Australian Open, and a couple weeks ago a straight-set win in Doha.

"I'm looking forward to it," Federer said. "What a great effort by Marcos."

The Bryan brothers, looking for their first Australian Open title, will face the No. 7-seeded pairing of Czech Martin Damm and Indian veteran Leander Paes in the men's doubles final.

Chinese Yan/Zheng, Hingis Win in Oz Open Doubles

The No. 12-seeded Chinese pair of Zi Yan and Jie Zheng ousted top seeds Lisa Raymond and Samantha Stosur 2-6, 7-6(7), 6-3 Friday in the women's doubles final at the Australian Open for China's first-ever slam title of any kind.

"We feel very exciting and very happy," said Yan, who with Zheng saved two match points in the second set. "Little bit nervous because first time in the center court. It's so big and so many people, so we have little bit nervous."

Last year the pair won titles in Hobart and Hyderabad and finished runners-up in Bali and Beijing.

"I think that both of them staying back on our serves is a little bit different to a lot of teams," said the Aussie Stosur, who with Raymond won the 2005 US Open. "Then you got to find the angles on the court, then you don't want to open up the angles too much to give them room to pass you. They were pretty good lobbers as well, so you couldn't, closing out, you couldn't really back off either. But just you just had to try and pick what they were gonna do and do it. We were doing that for a set and a half and then once they got a sniff, they kind of didn't let it go and they really, I think, picked up their game a bit in the end to close it out."

The mixed doubles final will be the unseeded team of Mahesh Bhupathi and Martina Hingis facing the No. 6-seeded team of Canadian Daniel Nestor and Russian Elena Likhovtseva.

Bhupathi/Hingis ousted the No. 5-seeded Aussie pair of Paul Hanley and Sam Stosur in straight sets in the semis, while Nestor/Likhovtseva edged No. 6 seeds Leander Paes and Nathalie Dechy from a set down.

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TENNIS-X NEWS, NOTES, QUOTES AND BARBS
Did Marcos Baghdatis hit any tennis balls on his day off Friday in Melbourne? No on-site sighting for whatever that is worth...Roger Federer won 12 of the last 14 games against Nicolas Kiefer. Federer is also a perfect 6-0 in Slam finals, has won 25 of his last 26 finals, and his last hardcourt loss in a final was 2002 Miami. Nice...As ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption" asked, is Marcos Baghdatis' girlfriend Camille a bigger star than Marcos himself?...Roger Federer has won 19 straight over German players, including three bagel sets in Australia...Justine Henin-Hardenne has won 13 straight Australian Open matches, and 20 straight in Australia. Henin has also won her last four Slam finals...Marcos Baghdatis on the advice he received from coach Guillaume Payre during the brief rain delay in his match against David Nalbandian: "I went in the changing room and I saw my coach and I told him 'What do I do?' He just told me, 'I'm not scared for you, I'm scared for him'. It pumped me up. What my coach told me, it was a sign, it was amazing." Baghdatis has a career 5-3 record against Top 10 players...Mike Coleman writing for the Courier Mail: "Well, thank you Martina Hingis for coming back and showing us everything there is to know about women's tennis. First, by not picking up a racquet for almost three years and then cruising straight into a Grand Slam quarterfinal, and second, by losing that quarterfinal quickly so we could all get back to talking about the men's draw. OK, OK, put down those spray cans of mace -- I am being facetious. I am a great admirer of Hingis and everything she achieved before injury and the arrival of the Williams sisters forced her into premature retirement. But in all honesty, does her recent success in Melbourne say more about her or about the standard of the players she faced along the way?...So what if women only play best-of-three sets while men play best of five? So what, too, that the chasm between the haves and have-nots of women's tennis is so great that the majority of matches rarely go longer than 6-1, 6-1. The fact is that in some cases, like that of Maria Sharapova, the women are beautiful and look great in short skirts. Young girls want to look like them and young men want to look at them. Tennis ability is an advantage but certainly not compulsory. Just look at Anna Kournikova. And look and look and look. Sharapova, who looks like Kournikova but plays like [Martina] Navratilova, was recently named one of the most influential women aged under 25 on the planet, along with such potential world leaders as Lindsay Lohan. So many other stunning looking young girls with similar sounding names are emerging on the pro tennis circuit that it seems they are being manufactured in a dis-used nuclear power plant in Latvia, but TV and marketing executives aren't concerned where they are coming from, just that they keep on coming."...So far ESPN's U.S. ratings for the Australian Open are up 16% over last year...From the India Times: "The ATP Tour proposes to reduce its tennis calendar to 10 months, move the season-ending Masters Cup to late October and give the men at least an eight-week break before the Australian Open. In an interview on Friday, ATP chairman Etienne de Villiers said the tour hopes to have the shortened season in effect by 2008. He also said there are no plans for a players' union, although he conceded that the ATP needs to take better care of its top players. "A lot of the top players want a longer period where there is no tennis, and I acknowledge that's a requirement," said de Villiers, who took over as ATP chairman last June. "No one is saying we want four months off, they're all saying eight or nine weeks. At the moment it's six weeks. I don't think getting to eight weeks is a problem at all." -- And nicely done by "E.T." in a stealth way, stopping the ATP CEO search and sticking himself in but dubbing himself "president"...From Doug Browne writing for the Marco Island Sun Times: "Did you know that the SaveDoubles.com Web site has received over 150,000 hits from all around the world, from doubles lovers everywhere in the last few months? Doubles players who are passionate about their love of the game and do not want to see it vanish have expressed their views about this cockeyed idea by the ATP, planning basically to eliminate doubles specialists. Thanks to the efforts of two dynamic doubles parents, Wayne Bryan and Brian Parrott, the save doubles campaign is making a splash to restore the integrity of this great game." Yeah, but a year from now will Joe Casual Tennis Fan be able to tell Mark Knowles from Mark Miles? Doubt it. And 150,000 hits over a few months?!? Stop the presses! Middle school bloggers pull in those numbers...Lindsay Davenport (ankle) and Serena Williams ("need practice") have pulled from next week's WTA stop in Tokyo -- can someone freelance-coach Serena, let her know, fat or not, that that's how you get practice, get match tough, is by actually playing events? How interesting since Serena entered the Australian Open "totally ready," yet now she's pulling from events because she "needs practice." Super-weak. Reportedly the WTA will fine Serena...ESPN2 will show the Aussie Open women's final live Friday night at 9:30 p.m. (EST) in the U.S...Along with Lindsay Davenport on the sidelines the WTA injury caravan made another stop Friday when Kim Clijsters announced she would be out of action at least two months with a ligament tear in her ankle...Speculation in Australia is that Lleyton Hewitt is leaving the Aussie Davis Cup team high and dry against Switzerland with a fake ankle injury as payback for Tennis Australia refusing to bow to his demands to speed up the Aussie Open's clay-slow injury-inducing Rebound Ace surface...U.S. GQ Magazine has put Lleyton Hewitt at No. 10 on its list of most-hated international athletes, where will Hewitt fall on the Aussie-only list?...Marat Safin will miss the first round of Davis Cup for Russia starting Feb. 10 with his bum knee...Roger Federer has stretched his Open Era-record hardcourt win streak to 51...The Bryan brothers are in the Aussie Open doubles final for the third straight year, hoping to raise the trophy for the first time in 2006...ESPN commentator Luke Jensen on Marcos Baghdatis: "There wasn't a specific turning point in this match. He just stayed with the game plan. The biggest flaw of clay court players such as Nalbandian, Guillermo Coria or Rafael Nadal is that they lack a knockout punch. They are grinders on the court, but they can play only so long when an opponent knows they don't have that one shot that can put him away. Nalbandian doesn't hit a big serve and doesn't have a monster forehand winner that knocks opponents off the court. Baghdatis does. He sets up the point, opens up areas and, boom, hits a winner. He changes gears and paces with his ground stroke and tempo. Nalbandian, by contrast, starts the same way and ends the same way, whether he's up or down. It's very predictable. The toughest thing for clay court players to do is to put their opponent away."...The Aussie Open men's final will be live Sunday at 3:30 a.m. (EST) in the U.S.