Anna Kournikova poses on tennis balls for sportswear ad

June 14th, 2009 LONDON - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown may have to face more difficulties in the days to come, as one of his closest allies Ed Balls, has said that he could ask Brown to step down. It has been revealed that Balls, who is currently the country's Schools Secretary, stunned Labour MPs by saying he is prepared to get rid of Brown at Labour's annual conference scheduled to be held in September.

May 10th, 2009 Gasquet confirms positive test for cocainePARIS — French tennis player Richard Gasquet confirmed that he tested positive for cocaine at the Sony Ericsson Open in March, but maintained his innocence. Gasquet said in a statement Sunday that the "B'' sample from the tournament in Key Biscayne, Fla., confirmed the result of the "A'' sample taken the same day.

May 4th, 2009 LONDON - The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) last night confirmed British tennis star Andy Murray as the world's third best player in the sport. By overtaking Novak Djokovic, the 21-year-old Scot will become the highest-ranked British man since the rankings were introduced 36 years ago, overtaking Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski, who both reached No 4, The Independent reports.

May 3rd, 2009 Table tennis players screened for fluYOKOHAMA, Japan — Players at the table tennis world championships are being screened for influenza as a result of the swine flu scare. Organizers of the April 28-May 5 event set up thermographic machines similar to those being used at Tokyo's Narita Airport.

May 2nd, 2009 China's Zhang advances in table tennis worldsYOKOHAMA, Japan — Olympic gold medalist Zhang Yining of China defeated Hungary's Krisztina Toth on Saturday at the table tennis world championships. The top-seeded Zhang coasted to an 11-6, 11-2, 11-3, 11-6 win over Toth to advance to the quarterfinals of women's singles.

April 26th, 2009 MELBOURNE - Australia will challenge any decision to suspend it from next year's Davis Cup after announcing that it would not send a tennis team to India for the May 8-10 tie against India in Chennai. Tennis Australia cited security fears related to the country's month-long general elections for which the final votes in Tamil Nadu state are cast on May 13.

April 21st, 2009 DURBAN - Kolkata Knight Riders thrashed Kings XI Punjab by 11 runs in a rain truncated Indian Premier League match here on Tuesday. Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Brendon McCullum won the toss and elected to field first.

April 19th, 2009 CAPE TOWN - Virender Sehwag's Delhi Daredevils thrashed Yuvraj Singh's Kings XI Punjab by 10 wickets in a rain truncated Indian Premier League match here on Sunday. Virender Sehwag won the toss and elected to field first.

April 13th, 2009 LONDON - Former World No.1 tennis star Monica Seles has said that food became her best friend to overcome loneliness after her father's death in 1998. Seles spoke for the first time about her nine-year battle with an eating disorder, The Sun reported.

March 21st, 2009 NEW DELHI - The All India Tennis Association (AITA) has launched a certificate programme for the coaches across the country. The programme was launced at Agra Friday at the fifth national coaches' workshop and was attended by 120 participants from all over the country.

March 21st, 2009 LONDON - Former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan has demonstrated the art of batting off the pitch with a series of paintings created with cricket balls. he "Artballing" series of paintings involved the batsman hitting paint covered balls at a stencil over a canvas to create a unique set of 60 images.

February 1st, 2009 LONDON - Mischa Barton, the former 'OC' star, posed for the Italian magazine 'Jack' to revive her flagging Hollywood career. Barton poses in just a jacket on her top half exposing quite a bit, reports thesun.co.uk.

January 30th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Yuki in Japanese means courage and snow. The youngest of the Bhambri siblings showed both grit and cool temperament in ample measure on his way to becoming the first Indian to win a junior Grand Slam title at the Australian Open.

January 21st, 2009 THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - The Trivandrum Tennis Club (TTC) will provide free training to 100 children from poor families, aiming to make them professional players. 'The selected children would be from the below-poverty line (BPL) category.

January 15th, 2009 KOLKATA - India's Chandril Sood and Tanvi R. Shah have got the top billing among boys and girls respectively in the ONGC-International Tennis Federation (ITF) Junior Tennis tournament to be held from Jan 19-24 here.