British number one Tim Henman moved into the second round of the Davidoff Swiss Indoor Championship in Basle with a comfortable victory over Tommy Robredo.
World number 10 Henman overcame the Spaniard 6-3 6-4.Henman won the tournament two years ago, beating Andre Agassi in the final, and was runner up a year ago.He came into the tournament bursting with confidence after his CA Trophy final win a fortnight ago.And he proved too strong for his 18-year-old opponent but predicted a bright future for rising star Robredo.”He has a pretty good all round game and this time next year, the way the Spanish players tend to evolve, he will probably be in the top 30,” said Henman.”This is a surface I enjoy,” he admitted “It’s a court that allows me to use my full game.”. Marat Safin, the US Open champion, finally broke his Kremlin Cup duck yesterday when he beat Rainer Schuttler, of Germany, 6-4, 6-4 in the first round. The top-seeded Russian had failed to survive the opening round in his three previous appearances in the Moscow tournament. Marat Safin, the US Open champion, finally broke his Kremlin Cup duck yesterday when he beat Rainer Schuttler, of Germany, 6-4, 6-4 in the first round. The top-seeded Russian had failed to survive the opening round in his three previous appearances in the Moscow tournament.
Safin fired down seven aces in his confident win. “The first match is always the toughest one, especially playing at home,” he said. “You always feel nervous in front of so many home fans rooting for you, and Schuttler is not an easy guy to play against.

Last year I didn’t have a chance against him, losing 6-1, 6-4.”It was a different story this time as Safin broke the German in the opening game to take the first set, then made a decisive break in the seventh game of the second to clinch victory in 72 minutes.Safin, who needs to reach the final to displace the Brazilian Gustavo Kuerten at the head of the ATP Champions’ race, meets the Italian Gianluca Pozzi in the next round.Another strong server, the fourth-seeded Marc Rosset of Switzerland, twice a Kremlin Cup winner, sent down 13 aces in a 6-2, 6-4 defeat of the Russian Andrei Cherkasov.Lars Burgsmuller, of Germany, who came in as a qualifier, was outplayed as Martin Damm won the first set of their match 6-2, but the Czech was forced to retire with a twisted knee a game into the second set.The only upset of the day in the men’s section saw the unseeded Vladimir Volchkov, of Belarus, beat the seventh-seeded Spaniard Fernando Vicente 7-5, 4-6, 6-3.The eighth-seeded Jiri Novak, of the Czech Republic, outplayed Goran Ivanisevic 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. The Croatian, who was the 1996 Kremlin Cup champion, took the first set in 25 minutes, but was unable to cope with Novak’s baseline cross-court drives in the second and third sets and also hit 15 double-faults.In the women’s event, the fifth-seeded Amelie Mauresmo, of France, thrashed the Australian Jelena Dokic 6-1, 6-4 inside an hour. “I feel like I have totally recovered from a lower back injury which troubled me on and off this year,” said Mauresmo. She now faces the American Lisa Raymond, a 7-6, 6-3 winner against the Belarusssian qualifier Tatyana Poutchek.”My game wasn’t really there today,” said Dokic, a semifinalist at the Olympics “I didn’t move well I didn’t use my head. I was just rushing things.”The Olympic silver medallist, Elena Dementieva of Russia, survived a tough test against the Romanian Ruxandra Dragomir. After losing the first set tie-break 8-6, the seventh seed had to battle to stay in the second, but, after winning it 7-5, she took the third set easily, 6-1.Lindsay Davenport has been named in the United States Fed Cup team for the four-day competition which will be held at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas from 21 to 25 November.

Belgium, Spain and the Czech Republic are the other competing nations, with the United States facing Belgium and Spain playing the Czech Republic in the semi-finals.Davenport won both of her matches in last year’s Fed Cup final against Russia and has a 23-2 career record in the competition, including 18-2 in singles. “As usual, I’m really excited to represent my country and try to retain the Fed Cup title,” she said. “I love playing Fed Cup and I’m looking forward to a great match-up.”. Black plastic clips and medical gauze were removed from the body of a young woman after she collapsed and died while on holiday in Corfu, an inquest was told yesterday. Black plastic clips and medical gauze were removed from the body of a young woman after she collapsed and died while on holiday in Corfu, an inquest was told yesterday.
Karen Murray, a 19-year-old, trainee hotel manager underwent two operations at the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Merseyside to remove part of her bowel, when she was 12-years old.She died seven years later, in May 1998, while on holiday with her boyfriend.Miss Murray’s mother Mary told the jury at Southport Coroner’s Court that an X-ray carried out on her daughter two years earlier had revealed “silver strips” inside her abdomen, but there was no suggestion from doctors that these needed to be removed.Following the X-ray, the teenager, of Southport, Merseyside, missed three appointments with a specialist which she did not tell her mother about. The jury heard how Miss Murray who was born with a rare bowel condition, called Hirschspring disease had developed a fear of doctors after having a colostomy bag fitted by Dr Roger Cudmore to ease her condition when she was 12 years old.In the summer of 1996, the inquest was told how Miss Murray came home from school complaining of feeling unwell and began vomiting that evening. She was admitted to Southport and Formby District General Hospital where she was given a number of enemas and an X-ray.Her mother told the jury that after the X-ray a doctor came to speak to them both.

“At the time he did not give any indication that there was any cause for concern,” she said.”He came into the room, laughing and saying ‘what has she been eating, because there are four to five silver strips showing on the X-ray?”Allan Mowat, representing the three hospitals involved in the inquest, told Mrs Murray that her daughter had received appointment cards to attend the Royal Liverpool University Hospital in December 1996, March 1997 and July 1997, but she failed to do so.. Women’s aid groups are circulating copies of the latest CD by American rap star Eminem in which he details the murder and disposal of his wife over a backing track of their three-year-old daughter singing. Women’s aid groups are circulating copies of the latest CD by American rap star Eminem in which he details the murder and disposal of his wife over a backing track of their three-year-old daughter singing.
Outreach workers are being provided with The Marshall Mathers LP album so they “know what they are up against” when they address youths with whom the star is popular and field an anticipated high volume of calls to Women’s Aid helplines. When domestic violence was last used to sell a record, in The Prodigy’s Slap My Bitch Up, the organisation was swamped by women whose experience it reflected.Women’s Aid’s despair accompanies the findings of its own research which reveals one in three women subjected to domestic violence is first assaulted when pregnant and that some women are attacked 35 times before they seek help. A nationwide audit of domestic violence undertaken by 43 police forces over 24 hours is expected to confirm the extent of abuse this week.On his latest album’s ‘Kim’ track, Eminem – real name Marshall Mathers – speaks gently to three-year-old Hailie Jane before flying into a rage and explaining, over her babyish singing, how he is about to throw his wife Kim’s body in a river. Other tracks advocating violence against women are in keeping with the singer’s reputation for abuse. Jade Elliott, a Women’s Aid outreach worker in North Wales, where 13 support groups have received the CD, said: “We have been asked to go and talk about our work in schools but we had no idea we were up against this.

It is frightening to think children could hear lyrics like this.”Eminem’s record company Interscope said The Marshall Mathers LP, currently Number 10 in the album chart, was “not targeted at a young audience at all” and had parental guidance stickers on its cover. “It is a hip-hop album, not a chart album and it is aimed at people who appreciate rap music,” said a spokesman.The life of Mr Mathers, 24, who was living in a trailer park flipping burgers 18 months ago, was transformed when his debut album, The Slim Shady LP, sold more than three million copies. His wife tried to kill herself earlier this year after writing to a local newspaper defending herself against her husband’s accusations of infidelity.. The pop star George Michael yesterday launched a scathing attack yesterday on The Sunday Times newspaper for distorting an article he had written for them about his purchase of John Lennon’s piano. The pop star George Michael yesterday launched a scathing attack yesterday on The Sunday Times newspaper for distorting an article he had written for them about his purchase of John Lennon’s piano.
In a letter to other newspapers he said: “Last week I was asked by The Sunday Times if I would like to write a short piece for them about John Lennon’s piano, and my reasons for buying it. Unfortunately, in my enthusiasm it slipped my mind that The Sunday Times is not quite the paper that it was.”He went on to say his piece had been “typically dumbed down and seriously de-clawed”, and criticised an accompanying news article for inferring “that I had been critical of the Spice Girls, Take That, and even suggest[ing] that I had wanted to prevent John’s widow Yoko One from getting the piano herself”.The original article, he points out “mentioned none of these people, because it was an attack on the corporate takeover of youth culture, nothing more, nothing less… All I can say to the editor of The Sunday Times is, I guess, it’s not just music that is in trouble”.The key changes are alterations of rude words and the exclusion of most of a paragraph in which Michael explains how pop’s corporate culture has lost touch with youth talent..