Venus moves closer to Serena meeting

DUBAI: Venus Williams moved to within one win of a possible semi-final against her younger sister Serena after beating one of the tour's most spectac
ularly rising players in Dubai on Wednesday.

The Wimbledon champion scored an impressively solid win over Alize Cornet, a 19-year-old from Nice who has risen more than 50 places in little more than a year to within one slot of the world's top ten. After an absorbing first set, Venus made light of the threat, imposed her forceful game upon the tactical patterns which Cornet tried to create, and made many more forays to the net than she used to, eventually winning by a slightly misleading 6-3, 6-1. If she gets past Elena Dementieva, the Russian fourth seed who ousted Spanish 14th seed Anabel Medina Garrigues 6-1, 6-3, Venus will go toe to toe with her sister, the world number one. The key moments came after Venus had broken Cornet's service for 4-2 - causing the French player to launch a ball angrily up into the air - and Cornet broke back spiritedly in the next game, which had several deuces. She used slow, loopy drives, and mixed up the pace and the direction, and ensured that Venus had a high ratio of forehands in the mix. Had Cornet consolidated for 4-4, the outcome might have been different. But after getting to 40-30, she was unable to make a pass when Venus gambled on getting to the net, and after three deuces and several good rallies, Cornet lost her serve again. Venus closed out the set without fuss, and the mood changed, with the sixth seeded player taking seven games out of eight, accelerating the pace of her attacks and swelling in confidence. Cornet may have been increasingly bothered by a shoulder problem. "I missed a few shots long and I was upset about that, but I was able to improve," said Venus. "I was good at the net and, yes, I like it up there." Serena was due on for the last match of the night session to play Zheng Jie, the Chinese player who reached the Wimbledon semi-finals seven months ago. Another leading contender, Ana Ivanovic, the French Open champion, also came through, but after leading by a set and 5-3 had to work harder than expected against Camille Pin, who only got into the tournament as a lucky loser. "I started really well but in the second set I started pulling back a little bit on my shots, and got a little but frustrated," said Ivanovic after her 6-2, 7-6 (7/5) win. "She's the kind of opponent who moves really well," said Ivanovic of the world number 61 from Aix-en-Provence. "But the balls were coming at me a little slower and then you have to through the ball more." Earlier, there were two retirements, shortening the schedule, and causing the match between Olympic champion Elena Dementieva and Anabel Medina Garrigues to be switched the centre court to fill the gap. First Marion Bartoli quit with blisters on both feet while trailing 2-5 against Vera Zvonareva, the world number five from Russia, and then Dominika Cibulkova, the 12th-seeded Slovakian, retired unwell while trailing 0-4 in the final set against Elena Vesnina, an unseeded Russian.

India's swine flu death rate is increasing

Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in

Cuba's world-famous cigar festival closes in Havana

Sunday, February 28, 2010 HAVANA: Hundreds of wealthy merchants and cigar aficionados from all parts of the world gathered in Havana this week to bid high stakes for humidors full of premium cigars. Cuba's annual Habanos festival ended on Friday night with an auction of ornate humidors of cedar and mahogany stacked with hand-rolled stogies that raised 800,000 euros ($1.09 million dollars). Habanos S.A. executives this month said cigar sales fell 8 percent to $360 million in 2009, so they have created the Julieta, a smaller, milder version of the Romeo y Julieta cigar, aimed specifically at female smokers. Women now make up only 5 to 10 percent of customers for Habanos. But even with the creation of the Julieta, Garcia said Habanos has only modest hopes for 2010 sales, due largely to a weak economy in Spain, the biggest market for Cuban cigars. The flavor of premium tobacco relies on the soil and climate in which it is grown. The western province of Pinar Del Rio, famous fo

Cyprus lace to be declared UNESCO cultural heritage

Tuesday, September 08, 2009 NICOSIA: Traditional hand-made lace produced in the Larnaca district village of Lefkara in Cyprus known as lefkaritiko includeded in UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). Soseilos said that the relevant UNESCO committee has already decided to include lefkaritiko in its list of the world’s ICH, a more recent addition to UNESCO’s long-standing list of World Heritage sites, and the decision will be formally announced at the UNESCO General Assembly next month. The tradition of needlework and lace embroidery in Lefkara goes back centuries.

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