AUSTRALIAN OPEN
Venue: Melbourne Park Date: 19 January-1 February
Coverage: BBC Red Button, BBC One & Two (including all Andy Murray matches), Radio 5 Live Sports Extra, BBC Sport website (Red Button coverage streamed on website throughout fortnight)
 The Swiss pair won gold medals in the men's doubles at the Beijing Olympics |
Roger Federer warmed up for the Australian Open by thrashing Swiss Davis Cup team-mate Stanislas Wawrinka to win the Kooyong Classic. The world number two broke Wawrinka three times in the opening set on the way to a 6-1 6-3 victory in the eight-strong invitational event. "I don't want to get too excited about it - but I think I played a really great match," Federer said. The Australian Open begins on Monday at Melbourne Park. Wawrinka appeared overawed in front of a sell-out crowd at the former home of the Australian Open, Federer breaking three times in the opening set before wrapping it up in 27 minutes. It was more of the same in the second set, Federer breaking Wawrinka in the second game and racing to a 3-0 lead. The younger Swiss man tried his best to claw his way back into the contest with some ferocious groundstrokes but Federer closed out the set and the match on his first championship point. It improved his record against his good friend to 3-0.  | 606: DEBATE |
The former world number one takes on Italian Andreas Seppi in the first round at the Australian Open, where he will attempt to equal Pete Sampras' record of 14 grand slam singles titles. He added: "I'm always confident entering any grand slam because of all the success I've had the last six years. "I always feel at the end of the day I'm going to play well at the slams and it will take an incredible performance from someone else to beat me." Elsewhere Argentine David Nalbandian defeated Finland's Jarkko Nieminen 6-3 6-7 (9-11) 6-2 to win the Sydney International final on Saturday. Number four seed Nalbandian looked to heading for a straightforward victory when serving for the match at 5-4. But the unseeded Finn broke Nalbandian and later eventually won a tie-break to take the match into a third set. However, Nalbandian broke Nieminen's serve three times in the final set to land his 10th ATP career title. Meanwhile, top seed Juan Martin Del Potro won the Heineken Open in Auckland by beating American Sam Querrey 6-4 6-4. The Argentine world number nine has risen 56 places in the rankings since the middle of last year and has carried the momentum into 2009 by outclassing the tournament's sixth seed. Del Potro, who won four tournaments last year, found himself 4-3 down in the first set but won three games in a row to take the opener after Querrey had saved three set points. He broke Querrey's service in the ninth game of the second set and then held serve to close out the match.
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