Sports 2000

I want to thank my EntreCard top droppers of January on this Top Droppers Day. I especially want to thank the authors of BMWF1Blog, Computer Aid, 15-Year-Old Kid Tech Guru, a malaysian abroad, Positive Real Estate Professionals, Retro Yakking and Wonderful Things in Life for being among the top ten droppers for both Sports 2000 and Politics 2000. I am very pleased you continue to visit each day. I hope you’ll do so in February and future months. I’ll continue to post here each day. Best wishes to you and I hope you enjoy the Australian Open final and the Super Bowl as February starts.

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Basketball Daily
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a malaysian abroad
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Wonderful Things in Life, with 30 drops each

Serena Williams won fourth Australian Open singles championship by crushing Dinara Safina, 6-3, 6-0. Williams claimed her 10th overall Grand Slam singles title in 59 minutes.

Williams won the first set in 22 minutes. Safina managed to take only two of the last 20 points of the set. Safina, seeded third, improved her play slightly in the second set.

Williams, who will be ranked number one when the standings are updated Monday, was broken to start the second set. However, she broke Safina back. After holding serve in the third game, Williams broke Safina’s serve again to claim a 3-1 advantage that she wouldn’t lose.

After dropping her first five service games, Safina managed to win her last two attempts at serve. However, Williams was much stronger tonight, particularly on her first serve.

Williams dictated most of the points. Safina wasn’t able to force Williams to move around the court. Instead, Williams was able to set and hit. She was simply overpowering.

Rafael Nadal kept his date in another Grand Slam final with Roger Federer but barely so. Nadal edged past countryman Fernando Verdasco in the semifinal Friday, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (2), 6-7 (1), 6-4.

Nadal won 185 points to Verdasco’s 184 during the record-length match of five hours, 14 minutes. The key was Verdasco’s 76 unforced errors. Nadal has less than a third of his opponent’s total, 25 errors.

Dinara Safina practiced on her off day before the women’s final Saturday. Meanwhile, her opponent, Serena Williams was winning the doubles championship with sister Venus. They defeated Daniela Hantuchova and Ai Sugiyama, 6-3, 6-3.

In the men’s doubles final Saturday night at Melbourne Park, Bob and Mike Bryan will face Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles. Bhupathi, one of the best doubles players of his generation, will also play in Sunday’s mixed doubles championship. He’ll be paired with Sania Mirza against Nathalie Dechy and Andy Ram.