Tennis Australian Open

Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos.

Tennis star Dominika Cibulková is an outstanding athlete who was ranked as high as No. 12 in the world. Still, she has no ego in a sport full of self-centered stars. In this exclusive video we ask Dominika about her height disadvantage -- she's only 5-foot-3 -- compared to many much taller players. We also hear who she thinks is the number one tennis player today and who she would like to play her in a movie.

Check out the video after the jump.

Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos.

22-year-old tennis hottie Maria Kirilenko has been ranked as high as No. 18 in the world, but she's getting a lot of attention for her looks instead of her tennis ability. In fact Kirilenko has been on the cover of many magazines and was selected in 2006 to be the face of Adidas. In this video we talk to Maria about her game and her name -- her connection to Utah Jazz star Andrei Kirilenko.

Check out the video after the jump.

With the retirement of Annika Sorenstam, this was inevitable, as long as, say, Serena Williams didn't want to start writing for GQ or start her own puppy clothing line.

Williams, who absolutely erupted through the Australian Open, winning the finals match 6-0, 6-3 against Dinara Safina, became the all-time career money leader in all of women's sports.

Cue the misquotation of Tom Hanks: "There's no crying in tennis!"

There was crying Sunday at the Australian Open, as Rafael Nadal continued his dominance of Roger Federer, winning a five-set Everlasting Gobstopper of a final, 7-5, 3-6, 7-6 (3), 3-6, 6-2. Federer was emotional following the match, unable to keep from crying as Nadal soaked up the crowd's acclaim. Even Nadal was moved by Federer's anguish, offering a comforting shoulder and encouraging words to his greatest competitor. It was a touching scene, even if Federer was seeming to steal Nadal's moment. Then again, the moment belonged to Federer as well.

TAMPA, Fla. -- It's Super Bowl Sunday and I'm in Tampa, so everyone around me must be talking about ... tennis?

OK, "everyone around me" might be an exaggeration. But I've been struck in the hours since Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in the Australian Open final by just how many people -- even 10,000 miles away -- are talking about a tennis match on the day of the Super Bowl.

It's not supposed to be this way. In the United States, tennis is supposed to be an afterthought, while the Super Bowl is the year's biggest event. But it speaks to the greatness of both Nadal and Federer that they can attract our attention by playing a classic match while most Americans are sleeping.

So it all comes down to this. No other match would have been more fitting. Top-ranked Rafael Nadal advances to another final against rival Roger Federer, who is trying to equal Pete Sampras' record of 14 Grand Slam singles titles. While the hype machine has been focused on the Super Bowl, in my mind, this main event will pack better pure action than Steelers-Cardinals can offer.

Serena Williams may have just redefined the word "domination" as far as tournament finals go. In an absolute thrashing, Serena routed Dinara Safina 6-0, 6-3 Saturday to win the Australian Open -- her 10th career Grand Slam title. With the victory, she returns to the No. 1 ranking, and we might as well just stamp her name on Melbourne Park for now. After all, she's won four out of the last seven women's championships there.

Andy Roddick should look at the bright side. He didn't lose to Roger Federer as badly as he usually does. Still, in the Australian Open semifinals on Thursday, Federer beat Roddick in straight sets, 6-2, 7-5, 7-5.

The two 7-5 sets are the hopeful part for Roddick. Maybe he can catch the Federbot one of these days. Roddick actually beat him the last time they played, almost a year ago in Miami. Prior to that, Roddick hadn't even won a set against Federer since late in 2006. That's how dominant Federer is. He is not the Tiger Woods of tennis. Tiger Woods is the Roger Federer of golf.

As Tuesday's Australian Open match between Andy Roddick and Novak Djokovic was nearing an end, and Djokovic was moving around the court with the grace of a dump truck, the ESPN commentators asked an open question about the Serb's conditioning: "What will his peers say off the record?"

It was the Serb's fourth retired match in a Grand Slam, and Djokovic (right) is only 21. Also, coincidentally, Roddick had called out Djokovic for being a little bit of an injury-milker at the U.S. Open last year, so this issue has been raised before. Well, no less an authority than Roger Federer spoke about the matter, and it wasn't off the record. He flat out said Djokovic needs to do something to be more fit.

Tennis is a funny game. One minute you're up against match point, with your tournament hopes hanging by a thread, and then a few points later you're suddenly running away the momentum.

This was the case for two of the ladies in the quarterfinals at the Australian Open. After winning the first set, Svetlana Kuznetsova was serving for the match against Serena Williams, but Serena broke the Russian at 4-5 to even the second set, and basically stole all of Kuznetsova's mojo. Then, despite some hot Aussie weather, Serena stayed focused and sweated her way to a second-set win and an absolute clobbering in the third set to win the match, 5-7, 7-5, 6-1.