By Mike Hedge
January 29th 2009 @ 2:14am
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Verdasco prepared for the best in Open semi
Fernando Verdasco has the belief and the game to beat whoever faces him in the semi-finals of the Australian Open. And with his quarter final win on Wednesday, he also proved he has the mental toughness.
Verdasco has powered his way through the championships to reach a new high point in his career with his 7-6 [...]
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![Dear Sonny Bill, or perhaps that should be Bonjour! I’m writing to you to congratulate you on achieving what your manager Khoder Nassar proclaimed was your goal when you left rugby league: to “transcend sport”.
Judging by the papers I think we can down tools and say ‘job well done.’
The single minded obsession that burdens [...] Steve Kaless: An open letter to Sonny Bill Williams](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/an-open-letter-sonny-bill-williams-th.jpg)
![Since the Wallaby winger Ian Williams moved to Japan to work and play rugby for Kobe Steel in 1991, there has been an influx of players and coaches who have followed to ply their trade and experience the intricate and ancient culture of Japan.
The national team, the Cherry Blossoms, are without doubt the rugby Asian [...] Todd Louden: Japanese rugby: it’s just different!](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/japanese-rugby.jpg)
![After the much-maligned coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Channel 7 continues to annoy sports fans by delaying its Australian Open night session’s coverage into key states. It’s just another example of how the Free to Air (FTA) networks continually miss the fundamentals of getting sports coverage right.
Queensland, WA and SA viewers have had [...] Adrian Musolino: Free to Air TV still ruining live sport](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/serena-williams.jpg)
![A few weeks back we solicited your questions to put to the NSW Waratahs CEO Jim L’Estrange, who has just entered what is going to be a challenging season with the Waratahs. He responded expansively to the batch of questions we posed to him.
When are we going to see more Super rugby matches on a [...] The Roar: Jim L’Estrange answers your questions on the Waratahs](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/jim-lestrange-th.jpg)
![There have been disparaging comments from the usual suspects in the British rugby media suggesting that the Bledisloe Cup Test in Tokyo is a commercially-oriented nonsense. Nonsense to that, I say.
Whenever Australia plays New Zealand at rugby, it is a good thing for the game, for supporters of the teams, for the lucky people who [...] Spiro Zavos: The fourth Bledisloe Cup Test is a good thing for rugby](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/the-fourth-bledisloe-cup-th.jpg)
![For all the talk of sporting codes needing to ‘change their culture’ in the wake of numerous sex scandals, there is one easy change they can make, something blatantly obvious, one of the final remnants of the sexist sporting age. The cheerleaders, grid girls, whatever you want to call them have to go. [...] Adrian Musolino: Remove the cheerleaders from sport](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/remove-cheerleaders-th.jpg)
![Flicking through the latest football news filtering through the wires last night, I came across the following headlines to the same Australian Associated Press story: A-League is ‘boring’, Rudan and ‘Boring’ A-league lacks character, Rudan.
Opening it, I was expecting to read Mark Rudan’s take on how the A-League was failing to live up to on-field [...] Tony Tannous: Is the A-League boring? No, just the headlines](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/is-a-league-boring-rudan-ognenovski-costa-th.jpg)
![In the wake of Paul Roos’s comments on the AFL’s decision to allow Gold Coast to keep their summer acquisitions confidential, Port Adelaide midfielder Travis Boak’s ‘supposed flirtation’ with Gold Coast highlights the inevitable results for out of contract players under such a policy.
Last week, newspaper reports linked Boak with a move to the AFL’s [...] Ben Somerford: AFL must be transparent on Gold Coast recruitment](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/AFL-clubs-think-outside-square-karmichael-hunt-broncos-th.jpg)
![Everyone seems to have an opinion on Peter Roebuck. Via his columns in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, he has become the highest profile cricket writer in the Antipodes. He was recently elevated into the next stratosphere, though, after the Test match in Sydney, becoming a bona fide identity in his own right.
Now, [...] David Wiseman: ‘Maybe I should have toned it down’, says Peter Roebuck](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/peter-roebuck.jpg)
![I got a lot of personal satisfaction a year ago in anointing Mark Milligan “Where’s Wally” for his habit of leaving clubs without notice and jetting off overseas, but I’m starting to think it could also be a good nickname for Mark Viduka.
Not playing in the Premiership and AWOL with the Socceroos, the V-Bomber has [...] Jesse Fink: 24/7 football coverage is not all it’s cracked up to be](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/viduka-shot-in-arm-th.jpg)
![Some might not have you believe it, but the most pressing story to come from Australia’s 1-0 win over Indonesia on Wednesday night was not the emergence of Tommy Oar on the international scene. Oar stole the headlines, but a more pertinent issue remains: the Socceroos’ inability to turn its domination into more than a [...] Paddy Higgs: Socceroos goal scoring problem still not solved](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/joshua-kennedy-th.jpg)
![A couple of years ago I went to Yankee Stadium with my sons to see a World Series game. We were seated near the home plate and during the pre-game warm-ups you could hear the players chatting as they belted balls high into the inky-velvet darkness of the night sky.
The facilities at the ancient ground [...] Spiro Zavos: Yankee Stadium sport’s most iconic ground? No way](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/scg-th.jpg)



