Roddick Guts Fish, Serena Big at Australian Open

"I don't think I played today as strong," said Williams of her three-set struggle. "I think I came out a little flat, started out a little slow. Maybe I just -- I don't know, I think maybe I was just a little nervous. My feet, I didn't have enough blood pressure in my feet. I just had to get going. I had to kind of work my way in the match...I think I put a little pressure on myself going into this quarterfinal. I played her before. I knew she was a tough player. We had a tough match before, at least in the second set it was real tough."

While Williams was a bundle of nervous energy in the third set, talking to herself, screaming toward the player box after big points and at times pumping her fist and glaring at her opponent, in the post-match conference she said things were different than they appeared.

"I get so calm," Williams told reporters. "I'm floating. I feel so happy. It just relaxes me and releases. It's just a pity it doesn't happen when I was up 4-1."

Williams says that the negative media coverage is negated by her belief in herself.

"Just haters, to be honest," Williams said about her detractors. "A lot of people don't have that negativity all the time. I guess it's a big story to write negative things about me as opposed to positive things sometimes. Or, hey, when you're down, people sometimes try to kick you...It's like people get pleasure out of talking bad. Does it make them feel good when it makes me feel bad? I guess it does. At the end of the day, I go home to my little dogs and my family. You know, I'm always going to be happy."

Next she will face No. 10-seeded Czech Nicole Vaidisova, who in her quarterfinal eased past unseeded countrywoman Lucie Safarova 6-1, 6-4.

"Yeah, I served pretty well," Vaidisova told reporters. "I'm really happy the way I returned her serve. She's tricky. She's a lefty. She can have those weird rotation slices. I read it well. Happy about that...Definitely, very, very happy and excited. The first Grand Slam of the year, you have some off-season. You don't know how you're going to come back. But I had a great start of the year. Now just keep improving."

On court Wednesday in quarterfinal action in Melbourne are (1) Maria Sharapova vs. (12) Anna Chakvetadze in an all-Russian encounter, and (4) Kim Clijsters vs. (6) Martina Hingis.

Federer, Roddick Set Up Clash as Australian Open

World No. 1 Roger Federer and No. 6 seed Andy Roddick set up a semifinal meeting with results Tuesday at the Australian Open, both winning in straight sets but with Roddick in brutal form rather than the top-ranked Swiss.

Federer defeated No. 7 seed Tommy Robredo 6-3, 7-6(2), 7-5 to gain the semis, while Roddick showed little love to buddy Mardy Fish, thumping his unseeded fellow American and former high school housemate 6-2, 6-2, 6-2.

"He played real well," Fish said of Roddick. "He's been playing great lately. Obviously it's a lot of pressure on your serve games when he serves that well, because he's going to hold most of the time. You kind of feel like every time you walk out there, not unlike [Ivan] Ljubicic, where it just felt like, if I lose my serve, I'm going to lose the set almost."

Fish had 12 aces to Roddick's 10, but Roddick used placement and power to win 92 percent of his first serve points to Fish's lowly 65 percent.

"It's probably the best I've played against him," said Roddick who raced out to a 4-0 lead in the first set. "Mardy might have been a little bit nervous at the beginning as he made a few errors he wouldn't normally make but that's about as well as I can play."

Federer was less impressive while still managing a straight-set victory.

"Conditions were very slow and it was windy so I had to adjust to that," Federer told reporters. "Tommy is a tough baseliner so he plays it smart. I tried to change things up a bit but I struggled to find my rhythm. Overall, I played pretty well. The breaks of serve were due to the windy conditions. My attacking style worked out well and I volleyed really well. As long as I get through I'm happy."

On tap for Wednesday's quarterfinals are (3) Nikolay Davydenko vs. (12) Tommy Haas (Russian leads career meetings 2-0), and (2) Rafael Nadal vs. (10) Fernando "Gonzo" Gonzalez (Gonzo leads 2-1).

TENNIS-X NEWS, NOTES, QUOTES AND BARBS
In mixed doubles play at the Aussie Open, Jonas Bjorkman and Francesca Schiavone won 10-6 in the third-set super breaker over Igor Andreev and Maria Kirilenko. Late in that breaker the chanting and singing Swedish fans broke out with a "Is she really going out with him, is she really gonna take him home tonight," Joe Jackson-inspired chant to Andreev and Kirilenko who are (were?) dating. Jonas and Schiavone then went to the edge of the crowd to hand the Swedish fans Aussie Open towels...Andy Murray after losing to Rafael Nadal 6-1 in the fifth set: "I felt like I played a really good match. He came out with some great shots when he needed them. I'm glad that I went out there and played for 3 hours and 50 minutes with one of the fittest guys. It didn't come down to a physical thing...I love the atmosphere. The crowd, they were a little bit drunk towards the end. It makes it more fun to play in that sort of atmosphere, against someone like Nadal who is a shot-maker."...The Tennis Channel will be using the Hawkeye instant replay challenge technology at The Tennis Channel Open beginning Feb. 25. James Blake, Lleyton Hewitt and Marat Safin are among players already committed for the event. "We're excited to offer instant replay this year, both to fans at home and in the stands," said David Egdes, tournament director and senior vice president, tennis industry relations, The Tennis Channel.  "It's been a hit with crowds everywhere it's been used so far, and we expect the same thing in Las Vegas. It's perfect for our tournament, which is already an innovator with the "Tennispalooza" theme and one of the first to use the ATP's new round-robin trial format."...From The Border Mail: "When the government officials came to Zheng Jie's village in Szechuan province in 1990 and told her she was to become a tennis player, like most seven-year-old Chinese girls, she didn't know what they were talking about. The officials told her the game was like table tennis with bigger racquets and balls and that it would be good for her. They were right. She is now the 31st best women's tennis player in the world. They were even more right about Li Na, who was identified as a tennis prospect when she was an eight-year-old playing badminton. Li is now China's No.1 tennis player...The doubles tennis gold medal won by Sun Tiantian and Li Ting was arguably the greatest surprise result of the Games. It also provided a less-than-subtle message: wait till you see what we do in Beijing. It was widely acknowledged in Athens that the Chinese had, by-and-large, sent a "B" team, an exploratory mission to test the water in sports they had barely attempted previously."...Tennis blogger Peter Bodo on why it's OK Serena Williams is fat: "There's no doubt that the WTA's diva supreme is overweight, and in a way that makes it impossible to imagine that she has done anything like even routine fitness training and self-policing when it comes to her diet. At the same time, when you can bring game of the kind Serena's trotted out under the hard Melbourne sun, you can suck down a bag of Doritos and top it off with a couple of Ho-Ho's and who's going to get all mouthy about it? Certainly not Serena's coach/mother, Oracene. Not the girls she's either crushed, outblasted or outlasted. Not the fans, who have been lapping up Serena's performances and dramatic flourishes. Let me see...that leaves the press, and who cares what they think? If they can't get their minds around the idea that you can be seemingly unfit to compete, yet still rain horror on women ranked 50, 60 places above you (Exhibit A: Nadia Petrova, the No. 5 seed here, whom Serena clubbed out in Round 3), they'll get used to it. Reality bites. All that old dogs can do is refuse to learn new tricks...So it's about time that critics stopped whining about the quality of the competition, or the way the other women shatter like dropped crockery the minute Serena fixes them with that disconcerting, hard stare. This isn't about the shortcomings of the WTA pros. It's about the strengths and will of Serena Williams. This clearly is a woman with a big appetite that isn't satisfied by mere food."...From Reuters: "Davis Cup champion Russia will be missing at least two key players when they begin the defense of its title against Chile in next month's World Group first round. Russia captain Shamil Tarpishchev said he would give Nikolay Davydenko and Mikhail Youzhny a rest for the Feb. 9-11 tie on clay in the Chilean city of La Serena. The third-ranked Davydenko, who has played more matches than anyone on the men's tour for the last two years, has reached the Australian Open quarterfinals where he will take on German Tommy Haas. The 25th-ranked Youzhny, who suffered a serious ankle injury three months ago, was knocked out by top-ranked Roger Federer in the third round at Melbourne Park. "We've planned to use Marat Safin, Dmitry Tursunov, Igor Andreev and Evgeny Korolev for this tie, but two of these guys, Tursunov and Korolev, suffered injuries," Tarpishchev was quoted as saying by the Russian media on Monday. "Now, we have serious problems as far as picking the team."...Marcelo Rios has reportedly withdrawn from the ATP Vina del Mar tournament, his lone planned ATP appearance of the year, with a back injury...From Contact Music: "Actor Nick Cannon has been hired by Will Smith to play late tennis ace Arthur Ashe in a new biopic. Smith will produce the project, and Bobby star Cannon can't wait to start taking tennis lessons so he can play the African-American sports legend authentically. Cannon says, "Not only is he a sports icon in the game of tennis but he's also a civil rights activist who did so much for our culture...and just stood for so much as a philanthropist and humanitarian. It's a thrill for me that I get to play somebody of that stature." The unnamed project will start shooting later this year (07)."...Tennis writer Matt Cronin at the Australian Open on Serena Williams: "What's really disheartening about Serena is that when she feels like it, she can be very charming. But to say that she's never negative is completely untrue. Positive people tend to be polite, which Serena often isn't. I can think of at least 30 different people (tournament staffers, commentators, tour staffers, media, officials) who have said that she was rude to them at some time or another. Negative also means not returning a greeting when someone you know walks by you and says hello, or ignoring someone who is talking to you, or yelling at them when you are not getting what you want. That's the private side of Serena that she doesn't want to discuss in public. She'll go on and on about what a nice person she is and how giving she can be. But she's reticent to talk about her very human, darker side. Most people have one and so does she. She'll come off as a lot more sincere and believable when she admits that the case."