Tennis:Conor Niland's bid to make through to the Australian Open proved to be a short-lived one as the Limerick man was brushed aside in his first round qualifier by Switzerland's Stephane Bohli.
Bohli, ranked some 68 places higher in the ATP standings, took just over an hour to secure the first and pressed home his advantage in the second, wrapping up a comfortable 6-3, 6-2 win.
There was better news for Britain’s James Ward after he came back from a set down to progress to the second round. Ward lost the first set against Inigo Cervantes-Huegun yesterday but resumed the match in much better touch.
He won successive sets on court four to seal a 6-7, 7-6, 6-1 win and will now meet Czech Ivo Minar in the next phase.
Rafael Nadal, meanwhile, has dismissed concerns over his fitness, saying his shoulder is “in perfect condition” ahead of the first grand slam of the year. The world number two plans to take February off to recover from a nagging shoulder injury, but will compete at Melbourne Park in search of an 11th Grand Slam title.
Nadal, 25, said his semi-final loss to Gael Monfils at the Qatar Open to start 2012 was a better result than he had expected.
“It was a better result than I thought and the shoulder is in perfect condition,” Nadal said. “Normally, you warm up for half an hour, 40 minutes, but there I was warming up for maybe an hour and a half on match days to practice a little bit more.”
While he won a sixth French Open crown last year, Nadal lost to world number one Novak Djokovic in the finals of Wimbledon and the US Open. Nadal said towards the end of last year he had lost some passion for the game, but he did lead Spain to the Davis Cup title at the start of December.
The 2009 Australian Open champion said he was working hard to regain his world number one ranking. “I played with fantastic passion the last two matches of the year in Davis Cup,” Nadal said.
“I’ve been working hard. I think I’m working the right way. There’s Djokovic (to compete with), but there’s a lot of fantastic players around and I have to be ready to compete against everybody. Last year I lost six important finals against him, but I played finals and that’s something really difficult to do. I know how difficult it is to be (in finals) almost all the time.”