Tim Henman, who is still looking for his first title in 2000, took just 55 minutes to qualify for the third round of the Tennis Masters Series in Cincinnati with a 6-1, 6-2 win over Mariano Puerta, of Argentina, yesterday.
Henman is now due to meet the winner of the match between the Wimbledon champion, Pete Sampras, and the American qualifier Taylor Dent, which was to take place last night.Henman’s win was impressive since Puerta stands at 19th on the ATP tournament entry list, just three places behind the Briton. It followed Henman’s 6-3, 5-7, 6-2 win on Tuesday evening over the American qualifier Cecil Mamiit, and has put him in much better spirits following his disappointing first-round defeat in Toronto last week.Pete Sampras has admitted that facing an unfamiliar opponent can make a match more difficult, and he got off to a slow start with Mariano Zabaleta, of Argentina, on Tuesday before winning 6-4, 6-2.Sampras, the defending champion, started tentatively, facing his only break point at 30-40 in the third game of the first set, but eventually eased his way into the 69-minute match. Sampras, who won a record-breaking 13th Grand Slam title at Wimbledon, said: “You have to get used to his game, where he likes his shots. I came out a little bit flat today, but started to feel better as the match went on.”The top-seeded Andre Agassi, trying to revitalise his game after sustaining a back injury in a minor car accident the day after his semi-final exit at Wimbledon, had a 7-6, 6-1 first-round victory over Wayne Ferreira.”I think right now just getting through a match without any physical difficulties has been an accomplishment,” the American said.

Agassi has beaten Ferreira on all nine occasions they have met, allowing the South African to win only one of 20 sets.In the Los Angeles Open, Serena Williams kept up the family success story by beating Ruxandra Dragomir 6-0, 6-1 in 38 minutes. Williams had not played since losing to her sister, Venus, in the semi-finals at Wimbledon five weeks ago.The third seed and three-times champion, Monica Seles, had to withdraw with a left forearm strain and the 17-year-old qualifier Daja Bedanova, of the Czech Republic, surprised the sixth seed, Nathalie Tauziat of France, winning 6-3, 6-4.. The human cost of medical advance was spelt out yesterday in a study that showed half of extremely premature babies will grow up with a disability ranging from difficulty with walking to blindness. The human cost of medical advance was spelt out yesterday in a study that showed half of extremely premature babies will grow up with a disability ranging from difficulty with walking to blindness.
The number of premature babies who survive birth at less than 26 weeks’ gestation has increased sharply in the past decade with the development of new techniques to assist breathing and boost growth in the womb.

But the legacy of improved survival is an increasing number of damaged children who will require care throughout their lives.The advance also carries immense costs. International research suggests that extremely premature babies who survive spend an average of four months in intensive care at a cost of £166,000. There is also the cost of lifelong care.The high risk of disability in extremely premature babies is revealed in research on 314 children born in the United Kingdom between March and December1995 and assessed at the age of two and a half. They were the only ones allowed home of 4,004 babies born at less than 26 weeks’ gestation in the 10-month period.Of the 283 children included in the study, 27 (10 per cent) were unable to walk, 12 (4 per cent) could not use their hands to feed themselves and 7 (2 per cent) were blind. In all, 49 per cent had some disability and 23 per cent were severely disabled.The aim of the study, led by Nicholas Wood of the University of Nottingham and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, was to provide parents and doctors with clearer information about the risks. “The prevention or amelioration of disability in survivors of extreme prematurity remains one of the most important challenges in medicine,” they say.But parents are using “hope and denial” to interpret the risks in their own way, according to an editorial in the journal.A spokeswoman for Bliss, the charity for premature and sick babies, said the technology to keep babies alive was improving all the time but neither doctors nor parents were clear what the consequences could be. “We get a lot of calls from parents of babies born that early wanting to know what is going to happen.

Their consultant may say there is a 50-50 chance but that doesn’t clarify the future. Any parent should be advised very carefully what the risks are.”. Laura, 24, was a teenager when she became pregnant with her son Zak. She believes there is a link between violent and aggressive behaviour in young women and falling pregnant. But contrary to thefindings of the study she thinks alcohol can be the root of both problems. Laura, 24, was a teenager when she became pregnant with her son Zak.

She believes there is a link between violent and aggressive behaviour in young women and falling pregnant. But contrary to thefindings of the study she thinks alcohol can be the root of both problems.
Laura, who has lived in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, for 12 years, said yesterday: “The type of girls who get into fights often get pregnant as well. I’m not one for fighting, I don’t agree with it.”She thought the academics from the University of Virginia were wrong not to link alcohol consumption with violent and aggressive behaviour “A lot of women use aggressive language, they swear a lot Mainly when they’re drinking, they get worse Fights take place in the evening after the pubs have closed. It’s mainly cat-fighting, pulling hair and scratching, that’s what I’ve seen.”She believed that violence can be a reflection of problems at home. “If you’re in an aggressive relationship with someone, that can cause you to be aggressive outside the home.”She said women fought less when men were present.