TENNIS: Venus Williams, renaissance woman. "I like to try new languages. I play the guitar and the bass but I want to learn keyboards. I write poetry in my spare time." And then there is the odd tennis tournament.
After six months away from the game, the older half of the Williams duo is back, and winning matches with the sort of ease that must be galling to others who tramp around the circuit in an attempt to better themselves.
But Venus has not won a grand slam title since the US Open in 2001 and has slithered outside the world top 10, even though she was seeded at number three here. Tennis moves on rather swiftly and it may be that Belgium's Justine Henin-Hardenne and Kim Clijsters, have opened up a gap that Venus will find hard to close.
However, she has been underestimated before and will be again. Yesterday she reached the last 32 of the Australian Open with little ado, recording a 6-4, 6-2 victory over the 17-year-old Russian Vera Douchevina.
"I could have pulled back, but I really wanted to go after her and play well," said Venus who described her opponent as "quite good for her age".
Venus's six-month sabbatical, brought about by the abdominal injury she suffered last year, has had its frustrations. "I was okay being away from tennis, but the hardest thing was accepting my limitations. Growing up in the Williams house there was no such thing as 'can't' or 'cannot'. My mom knows I try too much and she worries for me. She doesn't want me to lose my focus on tennis - which I won't. It's like my lighthouse."
Clijsters has had her own distractions - a twisted ankle and her engagement to Lleyton Hewitt. Neither has appeared to be a handicap here, and yesterday the world number two romped to a 6-0, 6-0 victory over Italy's Maria Elena Camerin.
The possibility of a love-match double is regularly referred to in the local papers but Clijsters brushes it all off with her infectious smile, and concentrates on her own career, which includes casting a watchful eye over the newly-returned Venus. "She looks very fit and very strong. I saw her serving really well, and she is so quick - still probably the best mover out there."
Meanwhile, another protege is stealing up on the outside. The 16-year-old Russian, Maria Sharapova, who lives in Florida, has already won two titles on the WTA Tour, and has now reached the third round of a grand slam for the second time in five attempts, her best run to date being the fourth round of Wimbledon 2003.
On this occasion she defeated Lindsay Lee-Waters of the US 6-1, 6-3, and tomorrow faces her fellow Russian and eighth seed, Anastasia Myskina.
And hot on Sharapova's heels could be French schoolgirl Tatiana Golovin, who got an early 16th birthday present - the scalp of an Open seed. Three days before her birthday Golovin pulled off the most unlikely win of the tournament so far when she beat 14th-seeded Israeli Anna Smashnova-Pistolesi 6-2, 6-3.
Born in Moscow, Golovin lives in Paris and plays for France. The youngest person left in the main draw, Golovin was only allowed to play in the Australian Open under a reciprocal wild-card arrangement between the Australian and French tennis federations and although she is still expected to play in the junior event at Melbourne Park, she has a third-round match against Russia's Lina Krasnoroutskaya to look forward to.
